GULICK  HYGIENE  SERIES 


^r  *#g 


CITY 


BY  FRANCES  GULICK  JEWETT  J 


REESE  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

?    UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

BIOLOGY  Q 

LIBRARY 
G 


THE   GULICK   HYGIENE   SERIES 


BY 

LUTHER  HALSEY  GULICK,  M.D. 

DIRECTOR  OF  PHYSICAL  TRAINING  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  OF  NEW  YORK 


THE    GULICK    HYGIENE    SERIES 

BOOK  THREE 

TOWN  AND  CITY 

BY 

FRANCES  GULICK  JEWETT 


GINN   &   COMPANY 

BOSTON   •  NEW  YORK   .  CHICAGO   .  LONDON 


BIOLOGY 
LIBRARY 

G 


ENTERED  AT  STATIONERS'  HALL 

COPYRIGHT,  1906,  BY 
LUTHER  H.  GULICK 


ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 
67.5 


GINN  &   COMPANY  •  PRO- 
PRIETORS •  BOSTON  •  U.S.A. 


INTRODUCTION 

While  the  laws  of  personal  hygiene  are  recognized  on 
every  side  and  even  taught  to  children,  the  wider  laws  of 
community  hygiene  have  not,  in  the  past,  been  included 
in  the  curriculum  of  our  public  schools.  This  might  seem 
strange  save  for  the  fact  that  the  entire  subject  of  public 
health  is  modern. 

Indeed,  with  the  power  of  the  microbe  unsuspected 
until  1865,  with  tubercle  bacilli  and  the  laws  which  con- 
trol them  undiscovered  until  1882,  with  universal  igno- 
rance of  the  cure  of  diphtheria  until  1892,  and  of  malaria 
and  yellow  fever  until  1901,  it  is  not  surprising  that  sci- 
entific facts  about  these  preventable  diseases  have  not 
as  yet,  to  any  appreciable  extent,  been  adapted  to  the 
understanding  of  young  children. 

At  last,  however,  between  the  progress  of  scientific 
research  on  the  one  hand  and  of  unprecedented  acquaint- 
ance with  city  conditions  on  the  other,  instruction  in 
the  importance  of  the  laws  of  civic  hygiene  has  become 
not  only  possible  but  imperative. 

Scientists  have  learned  not  merely  the  causes  of  a  high 
death  rate  but  the  way  to  avoid  them.  Moreover,  the 
modern  methods  of  research  are  of  such  profound 

iii 

166711 


iv  INTRODUCTION 

interest  that  I  can  discover  no  reason  why  they  should 
not  be  presented  to  school  children  with  the  sure  expecta- 
tion of  enlisting  their,  enthusiastic  cooperation  in  the 
work  of  raising  the  standards  of  city  life. 

In  planning  this  hygiene  series  I  have  had  in  mind 
the  fact  that  children  are  influenced  not  so  much  by 
dogmatic  assertion  as  by  acquaintance  with  facts  and 
courses  of  reasoning.  Assure  a  child  that  unwashed 
people,  crowded  into  unclean  rooms,  breathing  impure 
air,  and  drinking  impure  water  are  more  likely  to  be  ill 
than  clean  people  in  clean  rooms,  breathing  pure  air,  and 
drinking  pure  water,  and  he  may  or  may  not  believe  you ; 
but  explain  to  him  the  nature  of  those  microbes  which 
endanger  life  through  water,  air,  and  food  ;  show  by  actual 
facts  how  the  death  rate  has  been  raised  and  lowered ; 
demonstrate  by  individual  example  the  laws  of  contagion, 
and  we  shall  convince  the  child  by  the  same  facts  that 
have  convinced  his  elders. 

The  capacity  to  profit  by  generalized  statements 
comes  only  with  age.  For  this  reason,  in  the  present 
series,  even  on  the  subjects  of  alcohol  and  narcotics, 
dogmatic  assertion  and  the  easy  moral  have  been 
avoided.  Treatment  of  subjects  by  this  method  neces- 
sarily increases  the  volume  of  the  text,  but  it  also 
rouses  and  holds  the  interest  of  the  reader. 

Although  I  have  thus  planned  the  series  myself,  the 
writing  of  each  separate  volume  has  been  done  by  others. 


INTRODUCTION  V 

It  is  but  just  to  these  authors  to  say  that  in  prepar- 
ing the  facts  for  presentation  they  have  spared  no 
pains  to  acquaint  themselves  with  the  work  of  the 
original  investigators  on  whose  authority  their  own 
statements  rest.  In  proof  of  this  is  the  present  vol- 
ume in  which  pure  water  is  discussed.  The  author 
visited  the  experiment  station  in  Lawrence,  Massachu- 
setts, where  more  scientific  work  has  been  done  in 
sewage  filtration  than  elsewhere  in  the  United  States, 
made  careful  study  of  water  conditions  in  New  York 
and  other  American  cities,  and  consulted,  among  other 
works,  the  list  of  books  contained  in  the  bibliography 
at  the  close  of  this  volume.  Other  subjects  are  treated 
with  similar  thoroughness. 

Owing  to  the  direct  style  and  swift  movement  of  each 
chapter,  the  vast  amount  of  work  involved  is  not  rec- 
ognized at  once  by  the  casual  reader,  but  other  readers 
will  recognize  the  fact  that  nothing  of  this  sort  has  ever 
before  been  done  for  children.  In  certain  directions, 
indeed,  the  present  volume  represents  a  new  step  in  the 
evolution  of  young  citizens. 

During  the  past  few  years  important  contributions 
have  been  made  to  the  fund  of  information  concerning 
the  effects  of  the  use  of  alcohol  and  narcotics.  These 
contributions  come  partly  from  scientific  work  in  Ger- 
many and  elsewhere,  partly  from  recent  investigations 
of  the  interrelations  of  drink  with  crime  and  pauperism, 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

and  partly  from  the  anti-alcohol  requirements  of  large 
business  corporations  in  the  United  States. 

These  facts,  thus  contributed,  together  with  those 
more  generally  known,  furnish  a  story  of  such  excep- 
tional vividness  and  power  that,  in  regard  to  scientific 
instruction  on  the  subjects  of  alcohol  and  narcotics,  we 
cannot  but  be  faithful  to  the  demands  of  school  law  in 

the  various  states. 

LUTHER  HALSEY  GULICK 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  GROWTH  OF  CITIES    ...    .  '..   .    .     .- i 

II.  RESULTS  OF  OVERCROWDING 9 

III.  REFORMS 16 

IV.  EXPENSE  OF  ALCOHOL  TO  STATE  AND  CITY     ....  23 
V.  CLEAN  STREETS  IN  NEW  YORK 30 

VI.  JUVENILE  STREET-CLEANING  LEAGUES 39 

VII.  GARBAGE,  ASHES,  AND  RUBBISH 45 

VIII.  PARKS,  PLAYGROUNDS,  AND  PUBLIC  BATHS       ....  58 

IX.  FIRES     /.   t.    .     .;.>/. 68 

X.  GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL 78 

XI.  GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL  (continued} 84 

XII.  WATER  SUPPLY  FOR   NEW  YORK  AND  WATER  WASTE 

IN  CITIES 89 

XIII.  DRINKING  WATER 99 

XIV.  GETTING  WATER  TO  TOWN     ..'.'. 107 

XV.  RIVERS,  DRINKING  WATER,  AND  SEWAGE 117 

XVI.  PURIFICATION  OF  WATER  AND  SEWAGE 125 

XVII.  PREVENTABLE  DISEASE  AND  THE  JAPANESE  ARMY  .     .  133 

XVIII.  TOBACCO  AND  NATIONAL  VIGOR 141 

XIX.  FOOD  INSPECTION 149 

XX.  FOOD  INSPECTION  {continued}      .     . ...     .     .     .     ,     ,     ,  155 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXI.  EPIDEMICS  AND  THE  DISCOVERY  OF  DISEASE  MICROBES  165 

XXII.  SOME  SAFEGUARDS  AGAINST  EPIDEMICS 174 

XXIII.  VACCINATION .     .  184 

XXIV,  THE  ENEMY  OF  THE  CITY,  —  TUBERCULOSIS     ....  192 
XXV.  WAR  AGAINST  TUBERCULOSIS 203 

XXVI.  CITY  HEALTH  AND  ALCOHOL 213 

XXVII.  LITTLE  TURTLE,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  AND  THE  LINCOLN 

LEGION 221 

XXVIII.  WHY  MOSQUITOES  SHOULD  Go 228 

XXIX.  WHAT  NEW  ORLEANS  AND  BROOKLINE  DID    ....  236 

XXX.  HOSPITAL,  DISPENSARY,  AND  AMBULANCE 244 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  LIST 253 

QUESTIONS 257 

INDEX 267 


TOWN  AND  CITY 

CHAPTER   ! 
GROWTH   OF  CITIES 

An  Indian  in  his  wigwam  on  the  prairie  may  have 
quite  as  kind  a  heart  as  a  city  man  in  his  city  home ; 
he  may  also  be  more  vigorous  and  able  to  run  faster, 
but  as  a  rule  he  cannot  in  a  single  day  do  so  much  as 
the  city  man,  either  for  himself  or  for  his  neighbor. 

Just  here,  then,  is  the  secret  of  our  growing  towns  and 
cities.  Human  beings  are  becoming  more  and  more 
anxious  to  give  and  receive  all  they  can  from  day  to 
day;  and  they  wish  to  do  this  as  conveniently  and 
promptly  as  possible. 

It  turns  out  also  that  the  more  they  have  the  more 
they  want,  and  the  more  they  want  the  more  they  learn 
to  make,  until  to-day  men  and  women  all  over  the  world 
are  living  together  as  groups  of  people  who  depend  on 
one  another.  Some  are  manufacturing  goods,  some  are 
selling  them ;  some  supply  food,  others  supply  wits.  All 
are  buying  something,  and  in  one  way  or  another  they 
all  serve  each  other. 


2  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Indeed,  that  is  the  one  great  advantage  of  our  cities: 
people  are  close  enough  together  to  help  each  other  at 
the  shortest  notice  and  in  the  best  way.  As  time  goes  on, 
however,  notice  what  happens.  See  how  it  has  worked 
on  Manhattan  Island,  where  New  York  City  stands. 


HOMES  ON  THE  PRAIRIE 

In  1700  the  houses  of  the  city  were  far  apart;  wide 
streets  were  between  them,  large  grounds  around  them, 
where  children  played ;  grass  was  everywhere,  also  trees, 
birds,  and  flowers.  One  hundred  years  later  many  more 
houses  stood  on  the  same  space  of  ground ;  less  grass 
was  near  them,  fewer  trees,  no  birds,  hardly  any  flowers. 
One  hundred  years  later  still  in  certain  parts  of  the  city 
no  grass  could  be  seen  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach ; 


GROWTH  OF  CITIES  3 

no  trees,  no  birds,  only  a  few  flowers  in  flowerpots, 
while  the  houses  were  so  tall  that  the  narrow,  paved 
streets  between  them  looked  like  hard,  slender  valleys 
between  stone  and  brick  mountains.  Little  chance  for 
sunlight  there!  Instead  of  carriages  drawn  by  horses, 


A  VILLAGE  HOME 


there  now  appeared  cars,  automobiles,  bicycles,  and  busi- 
ness wagons;  and  these  rushed  so  fast  here  and  there 
that  children  had  to  give  up  playing  on  the  streets. 

This  was  bad  enough;  yet  into  that  crowded  place 
people  were  now  pouring  at  the  rate  of  one  hundred 
thousand  every  year ;  and,  strange  to  say,  they  all  found 
room  to  live.  How  did  they  do  it  ? 

Land  was  growing  more  valuable  each  year,  and  to 
make  the  most  of  it  men  ran  their  buildings  up  from 
three  to  seven  and  eight  stories :  one  tenement  in  New 


4  TOWN  AND  CITY 

York  City  is  twelve  stories  high.  They  packed  these 
houses  so  close  together  that,  in  some  cases,  almost  no 
land  in  each  block  was  left  for  a  breathing  space.  They 
divided  and  subdivided  each  broad  flat  into  scores  and 
hundreds  of  tiny  rooms ;  for,  from  first  to  last,  the  one 
object  in  mind  was  to  make  as  many  rooms  as  possible, 
so  as  to  accommodate  as  many  people  as  possible  and 
receive  rent  from  them  all. 

The  result  was  that  in  1897  five  blocks  of  buildings 
in  New  York  City  held  about  three  thousand  people 
each;  and  by  1904  there  were  over  three  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dark,  unventilated  rooms  in  the  city.  (Do 
not  try  to  remember  these  figures,  but  notice  how  large 
they  are.) 

In  1900  one  such  block  held  twenty-seven  hundred 
and  eighty-one  men,  women,  and  children  who  were 
stowed  away  in  fifteen  hundred  and  eighty-eight  rooms. 
As  it  happened,  over  four  hundred  of  these  rooms  had 
no  windows  whatever  and  no  outside  doors,  while  six 
hundred  other  rooms  opened  into  the  air  shafts.  Now  an 
air  shaft  is  often  simply  a  twenty-eight-inch  wide  air  well 
that  runs  up  through  the  center  of  the  building.  Any- 
where from  twenty  to  sixty  windows  open  into  it,  and 
wretched  odors  from  scores  of  kitchens  and  bedrooms 
stream  into  it  so  constantly  that  people  often  nail  up 
their  own  windows  to  keep  out  the  smells  and  the 
polluted  air  from  other  rooms. 


GROWTH  OF  CITIES  5 

Taken  altogether,  then,  in  a  single  block  there  were 
over  one  thousand  rooms  which  no  ray  of  sunlight  could 
ever  find,  which  no  breath  of  really  fresh  air  could  ever 
enter.  In  fact,  when  the  doors  of  most  of  those  rooms 
were  shut,  they  were  like  black,  airless  boxes  with  the 


HOMES  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 

covers  on.  Nevertheless,  in  1900,  in  that  very  block, 
four  hundred  and  sixty-six  babies  were  trying  to  keep 
alive.  No  wonder  they  often  failed!  No  wonder  they 
died  even  faster  than  the  grown  folks ! 

Still,  by  running  up  those  towering  houses,  by  mak- 
ing many  rooms,  by  crowding  human  beings  into  them 


6  TOWN  AND  CITY 

regardless  of  life  and  health,  New  York  City  manages  to 
accommodate  hundreds  and  thousands  of  fresh  arrivals 
every  year.  The  end  of  it  is  that,  in  a  certain  district 
of  the  city,  people  have  stowed  themselves  away  at  the 
rate  of  two  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  to  the  square 
mile.  This  simply  means  that  just  there  more  human 
beings  live  closer  together  than  they  do  anywhere  else 
in  the  world. 

Since  that  sort  of  crowding  must  be  woefully  uncom- 
fortable, we  wonder  why  yet  other  people  are  willing 
to  increase  the  crowd  by  going  to  that  particular  spot 
to  live. 

The  truth  is  that,  as  a  rule,  when  a  man  goes  to  a 
city  to  carry  on  his  work  he  cannot  afford  either  to  buy 
a  house  or  to  build  one ;  still  he  must  find  a  home  for 
himself  and  his  family  somewhere,  and  for  the  sake  of 
saving  time  and  car  fare  he  hires  rooms  as  near  his 
work  as  possible.  Then,  too,  other  men  who  are  hunting 
for  work  go  to  the  same  region.  They  also  hire  rooms 
there;  and  at  any  point  in  a  city  where  those  two 
streams  of  people  meet,  there  the  houses  are  tallest,  the 
streets  narrowest,  the  rooms  darkest. 

Not  only  this,  but  multitudes  of  these  men  and  women 
know  nothing  about  the  advantages  of  fresh  air,  cleanli- 
ness, and  ventilation.  They  must  also  economize  all  they 
can.  When,  therefore,  they  have  all  they  can  do  to  buy 
food  and  clothes  for  the  family,  and  when  they  find  that 


AN  AIR  SHAFT  TWENTY  INCHES  WIDE  AND  Six  STORIES  DEEP 


8  TOWN  AND  CITY 

they  can  save  four  or  five  dollars  a  month  on  rent  by 
living  in  dark,  close  sleeping  rooms,  they  are  almost 
sure  to  do  it. 

Generally  the  consequences  of  overcrowding  are  dark- 
ness, unclean  houses,  unclean  air,  and  unclean  people. 
Disease  microbes  are  sure  to  follow ;  and  wherever  they 
go  the  history  is  the  same,  for  disease  and  death  travel 
with  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  every  city  there  are  thousands 
of  homes  with  room  enough  around  them  to  give  grass, 
flowers,  and  children  a  chance ;  and  each  home  of  that 
sort  raises  the  health  standard  for  the  entire  city.  Wide, 
clean  streets  full  of  sunshine  do  the  same  thing ;  yet  the 
most  beautiful  home  in  the  most  beautiful  city  is  in 
danger  when,  in  another  part  of  the  same  city,  narrow 
streets  and  crowded  blocks  are  filled  with  men  and 
women  who  live  in  the  midst  of  uncleanness,  impure 
air,  and  disease. 


CHAPTER   II 

RESULTS  OF  OVERCROWDING 

No  owner  of  tenement  houses  in  a  crowded  city  would 
for  a  moment  think  of  walking  through  the  streets  with 
a  revolver,  shooting  down  thirty  or  forty  persons  out  of 
every  thousand  whom  he  should  meet,  for  the  sake  of 
robbing  them.  But  he  does  something  quite  as  bad 
when,  knowing  that  his  houses  are  death  traps,  he  rents 
them  to  thousands  of  people,  who  live  in  them  and  die 
in  them  while  he  pockets  the  rent. 

Mulberry  Bend  in  New  York  City  used  to  be  one  of 
these  terrible  places.  In  early  days  it  was  "a  crooked 
three-acre  lot  with  a  path  through  it  made  by  cows." 
But  it  ended  by  being  covered  close  with  rotten  build- 
ings, narrow  stairways,  halls  so  dark  that  a  man  could 
not  see  his  hand  before  his  face,  and  small  unventilated 
rooms,  where  every  year  people  died  at  the  rate  of  forty 
or  more  for  every  thousand  who  lived  in  them. 

In  London  the  crowding  is  so  great  that  three  hun- 
dred thousand  of  its  citizens  live  in  tenements  of 
one  room  for  a  family.  Forty  thousand  of  these  live 
five  in  a  single  room,  while  eight  thousand  live  eight 
in  a  room. 

9 


IO 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


When  overcrowding  reaches  such  a  point  everything 
suffers.  Careless  people  using  dark  halls,  cellars,  and 
bath  rooms  are  not  neat  in  disposing  of  their  rubbish, 
their  garbage,  and  their  soiled  clothes.  They  act  as 
if  they  thought  the  darkness  were  going  to  save  them 


MULBERRY  BEND,  A  NOTORIOUS  SLUM 

from  disease  as  well  as  from  disgrace.  Yet  everything 
helps  disease  along  in  these  neglected  houses.  Gas  pipes 
leak  and  sewer  pipes  are  out  of  order ;  the  air  grows  heavy 
with  carbon  dioxid,  with  illuminating  gas,  with  foul  gases 
from  broken  sewers,  with  the  smell  of  dirt;  while  at  the 
same  time  dampness  adds  to  the  dangerous  conditions. 


RESULTS  OF  OVERCROWDING  II 

Mr.  Riis,  who  has  studied  New  York  City  thoroughly, 
was  in  despair  when  he  saw  the  condition  of  things. 
He  found  cellars  so  near  the  river  that  the  water  soaked 
through  and  rose  and  fell  with  the  tide.  Indeed,  he  says 


A  DARK,  INTERIOR  ROOM 
There  are  over  three  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  like  it  in  New  York  City 

he  knew  cases  where  parents  "  kept  their  children  in  bed 
till  ebb  tide  "  to  keep  them  dry. 

Fifty  years  ago  in  Boston  the  situation  seems  to  have 
been  even  more  tragic ;  for  during  a  cholera  epidemic, 
when  a  certain  doctor  went  to  see  a  sick  woman  who 
lived  in  a  cellar,  he  found  the  water  so  deep  that  the  only 
way  he  could  reach  her  bed  was  by  walking  on  planks 
laid  from  one  stool  to  another. 


12 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


In  those  days,  of  course,  no  one  knew  that  dampness, 
darkness,  and  dirt  are  just  the  three  conditions  that 
are  best  for  microbes  and  worst  for  men;  to-day  those 
facts  are  plain  enough.  It  is  also  quite  as  plain  that 
even  when  a  city  is  clean,  well  built,  and  uncrowded,  the 

inhabitants  of  the  place 
may  die  each  year  at  the 
rate  of  seventeen  for  every 
thousand.  Men  know  this 
from  records  that  have 
been  kept ;  they  are,  there- 
fore, startled  over  other 
city  records  which  show 
that  when  people  live  in 
damp,  dark  cellars,  or  in 
dark,  crowded,  unclean 
houses,  the  number  of 
deaths  jumps  to  thirty  or 
forty  for  each  thousand. 

In  New  York  City  the 
darkest  and  most  unwhole- 
some houses  are  rear  tenements  which  stand  so  close 
behind  the  front  tenements  that  the  distance  between 
them  is  from  two  inches  to  five  feet.  Of  course,  each 
building  keeps  daylight  from  the  other;  at  the  same 
time  the  rear  tenement  is  always  the  older,  the  more 
unclean,  and  the  more  neglected  of  the  two.  Naturally, 


RUBBISH  IN  THE  COURTYARD 


RESULTS  OF  OVERCROWDING 


of  course,  the  rents  are  lower  here  and  the  people  more 
crowded. 

Remember  these  facts  and  read  the  following  figures. 
Mr.  De  Forest,  in  his  book  called  The  Tenement  House 
Problem,  tells  us  that,  in 
the  First  Ward,  in  tene- 
ments which  had  no 
houses  behind  them,  about 
twenty-nine  people  died 
out  of  each  thousand  that 
lived  there;  whereas,  in 
the  same  ward,  when  there 
was  a  rear  tenement,  the 
deaths  rose  to  sixty-one 
for  each  thousand  of  the 
occupants.  Sadder  yet,  in 
such  places,  when  an  epi- 
demic once  had  a  start, 
nothing  stopped  it, — 
young  and  old,  strong  and 
weak,  all  seemed  doomed. 

This  is  bad  enough  for 
grown  folks,  but  babies  always  suffer  most  in  such 
places.  In  those  rear  tenements,  therefore,  the  death 
rate  for  babies  rose  to  two  hundred  and  four  for  every 
thousand  ;  that  is,  one  baby  died  for  every  five  that  were 
born.  When  men  began  to  realize  all  this,  they  called 


WHERE  MICROBES  LIVE  Two  YEARS 
AND  LONGER 


I4  TOWN  AND  CITY 

those  places  "  infant  slaughter  houses,"  for  they  said  that 
the  condition  of  the  buildings  killed  the  babies. 

In  Berlin,  Germany,  in  1885,  there  were  over  thirteen 
hundred  thousand  residents,  and  seventy-three  thousand 
of  them  lived  in  families  in  one-room  tenements.  That 
means  that  each  family  lived,  slept,  cooked,  and  ate  in  the 
same  room.  They  were  distributed  as  follows : 

In  one-room  tenements 73,000 

In  two-room  tenements 382,000 

In  three-room  tenements 432,000 

In  four-room  tenements 398,000 

Now  compare  -those  figures  with  this  other  table  which 
shows  the  death  rate  in  each  set  of  rooms : 


Per 

Thousand 


In  one-room  tenements 163.5 

In  two-room  tenements 22.5 

In  three-room  tenements 7.5 

In  four-room  tenements 5.4 

These  astounding  figures  showed  that  families  in 
four-room  tenements  were  thirty  times  as  likely  to  live 
through  the  year  as  those  in  one-room  tenements.  The 
explanation  is  the  old  one  that  we  began  to  understand 
in  Good  Health.  Any  human  being  who  has  too  little 
oxygen  or  too  little  sunshine,  who  breathes  air  with  gas 
in  it,  or  odors  from  soiled  clothes,  from  leaking  sewer 
pipes,  from  decaying  food  and  unwashed  people,  is  doing 
what  he  can  to  make  his  body  too  weak  to  resist  disease 


RESULTS  OF  OVERCROWDING  15 

microbes.  In  the  end,  therefore,  he  may  be  as  helpless 
before  them  as  a  half-starved  man  is  helpless  before  a 
wild  animal,  —  the  animal  and  the  microbe  are  likely  to 
be  victorious  in  both  cases. 

This  is  serious  enough,  though  it  is  not  the  whole  of 
the  story,  for  all  thinkers  know  that  the  place  a  man 
lives  in  affects  his  character;  that  the  more  crowded, 
unclean,  and  uncomfortable  a  tenement  is,  the  more  law- 
less and  reckless  do  the  inhabitants  become ;  that  jails, 
hospitals,  and  asylums  are  filled  with  streams  of  unfortu- 
nate citizens  who  pour  into  them  from  the  more  unhealth- 
ful  tenements. 

In  fact  it  is  true  that  every  year  forty  thousand  men 
and  women  find  their  way  from  the  same  part  of  New 
York  to  the  penitentiaries  and  the  almshouses  of  the 
city. 

There  are  two  reasons,  then,  why  every  part  of  a  city 
should  be  kept  in  healthful  condition : 

1.  Because  cities  need  men  and  women 
with  strong  bodies. 

2.  Because  cities  need  men  and  women 
with  strong  characters. 


CHAPTER  III 
REFORMS 

In  1902  New  York  City  established  a  new  Tenement 
House  Department,  and  after  that  reforms  moved  along 
at  a  brisk  pace. 

Four  hundred  inspectors  were  then  chosen  and  sent 
out  to  visit  the  eighty-two  thousand  tenements  of  the 
city  and  to  report  on  the  condition  of  these  buildings, 
which  held  twenty-three  hundred  thousand  people.  The 
precise  definition  of  a  tenement  is  a  house  in  which  three 
or  more  families  live  and  keep  house  separately,  or  where 
more  than  two  families  live  on  one  floor. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  New  York  her 
tenements  were  being  thoroughly  examined.  Sometimes 
the  tenants  were  curious  over  the  work  of  the  inspectors ; 
at  other  times  they  were  indignant;  but  they  always 
ended  by  being  grateful. 

One  of  the  first  inspectors  visited  a  five-story  house 
on  the  East  Side;  and  crowds  of  Italian  men,  women, 
and  children  gathered  around  him,  curiously  wondering 
what  he  wanted.  They  were  astonished  to  have  him  go 
directly  to  the  cellar.  He  himself  was  astonished  two 
minutes  later  when  he  stepped  off  the  lowest  stair  into 

16 


REFORMS  17 

a  pond  of  cold  water.  The  children  giggled,  of  course ; 
but  he  lighted  a  torch  and  looked  around.  Such  a  sight ! 
Baskets  and  boxes  and  trash  of  every  sort  were  afloat. 
Indeed,  as  he  said  afterwards,  it  looked  as  if  a  ship  had 
been  wrecked  down  there.  Everybody  was  ready  to 
help,  however,  and  with  chairs,  stones,  and  planks  he 
made  a  bridge  across  to  the  waste  pipe.  There  he  found 
the  trouble,  —  a  hole  three  inches  wide  and  six  inches 
long,  with  all  the  waste  water  of  the  entire  house  pouring 
through  it  into  the  cellar. 

With  such  an  introduction  to  the  house  as  that, 
he  was  prepared  for  anything  else,  —  water  pipes  and 
flushing  apparatus  out  of  order;  woodwork  around 
the  sinks  so  rotten  that  the  odor  of  the  place  was 
intolerable;  walls,  ceilings,  and  floors  unclean  beyond 
description. 

After  this  report  was  sent  in  reformation  began. 
Carpenters,  plasterers,  and  plumbers  went  to  work ; 
pipes  were  mended,  flushing  basins  put  in  order,  ceil- 
ings renewed,  walls  whitened.  And  when  the  inspector 
visited  the  place  again  a  few  weeks  later  he  says  he 
should  not  have  known  it  except  for  the  Italians.  But 
they  knew  him  at  once  and  proudly  took  him  around 
from  one  part  of  the  house  to  another  to  show  off  the 
wonderful  improvements,  —  new  drain,  dry  cellar,  new 
washtubs,  clean  walls,  fresh  ceilings,  all  as  tidy  and 
wholesome  as  possible. 


1 8  TOWN  AND  CITY 

That  was  the  experience  of  one  man.  Reports  also 
went  in  by  the  hundred  and  the  thousand  from  all  the 
other  inspectors,  until  the  department  at  last  felt  that 
they  had  pretty  definite  knowledge  to  go  by.  They 
then  decided  to  do  three  things: 

1.  To  give  the  city  the  right  kind  of  new 
tenement  houses. 

2.  To  continue  with  the  work  of  making 
the  old  ones  fit  to  live  in. 

3.  To  supervise  both  the  old  and  the  new 
so  carefully  and  constantly  that  they  would 
be  kept  in  sanitary  condition. 

Many  owners  of  tenements  resisted  these  improve- 
ments, saying  that  they  could  not  afford  to  pay  for  them, 
but  the  officers  of  the  department  were  firm ;  the  law 
was  behind  them  and  they  enforced  it.  Hundreds  of 
the  worst  tenements  were  bought  by  the  city  and  pulled 
down ;  others  were  repaired  and  altered ;  while,  as  fast 
as  possible,  new  tenements  were  built.  And  now  came  a 
pleasant  surprise.  In  many  cases  the  owners  themselves 
began  to  be  grateful ;  for  they  found  that  instead  of 
objecting  to  higher  rent,  thousands  of  citizens  were 
willing  to  pay  a  little  extra  for  the  sake  of  clean  rooms, 
pure  air,  and  more  sunshine.  In  fact  they  often  seemed 
enthusiastic  about  these  things. 

Still  the  greatest  enthusiasm  was  over  the  new  tene- 
ment houses  themselves.  During  1902  five  hundred  and 


REFORMS  19 

forty-three  of  these  were  put  up,  and  in  1903  there  were 
over  twice  as  many  more.  They  were  such  an  improve- 
ment over  the  old  buildings  and  people  were  so  anxious 
to  live  in  them  that  they  were  rented  not  only  as  fast  as 
they  were  finished,  but  every  room  was  engaged  even 
before  the  buildings  were  fairly  up.  Sometimes  people 
even  went  so  far  in  their  eagerness  that  they  rented 
their  new  homes  from  the  drawings  of  them,  which  they 
examined  before  the  first  stone  of  the  building  was  laid. 

More  than  that,  in  certain  parts  of  the  city  there  was 
such  great  interest  in  the  matter  that  troops  of  men  and 
women  took  their  friends  with  them  on  Sunday  excur- 
sions to  visit  the  new  tenements.  They  enjoyed  the  light 
rooms,  bathrooms,  wide  halls,  fresh  air,  and  sunshine. 
Rents  were  a  little  higher  to  be  sure,  but  everything 
was  built  according  to  the  new  law ;  and  since  that  time 
people  have  talked  about  "new-law  houses,"  which  means 
houses  built  since  1901,  and  "old-law  houses,"  built  before 
1901.  Notice  the  difference  between  the  two  sets: 

Old-law  houses.  Hundreds  of  small  rooms  with  no 
outside  door  or  window ;  no  chance  for  light ;  no  fresh 
air  in  the  building  except  through  the  slamming  front 
door;  halls  narrow,  sixty  feet  long,  so  dark  that  you 
stumbled  over  ragged  creeping  babies  without  seeing 
them;  stairs  narrow,  steep,  dark;  cellars  damp,  neg- 
lected, often  filthy ;  bathrooms  in  common  for  the  entire 
building;  very  little  protection  against  fire;  central  air 


20  TOWN  AND  CITY 

shaft  twenty-eight  inches  wide ;  dust,  dirt,  rubbish,  and 
darkness  everywhere.  Yet  the  rent  for  these  dreadful 
places  was  often  very  high. 

New-law  houses.  No  room  without  a  window  opening 
out  of  doors;  good  light  and  ventilation;  halls  square, 
broad,  light ;  stairs  neither  steep  nor  dark ;  every  one  of 
them  fireproof;  cellars  damp  proof;  separate  bathroom 
arrangements  for  each  family ;  courtyard  not  less  than 
twelve  and  a  half  feet  wide  and  twenty-eight  feet  long; 
light  everywhere  so  that  dust  and  rubbish  show  plainly 
and  have  little  chance.  These  new  dwellings  were  often 
built  by  honest  people  who  were  not  willing  to  charge 
too  much  for  rent. 

No  wonder  those  buildings  were  besieged  by  people 
who  wished  to  live  in  them. 

Yet  even  in  making  old  tenements  respectable  the 
department  did  great  things.  Here  are  a  few  figures 
to  show  what  the  reformers  accomplished  in  eighteen 
months.  They  found  the  names  of  forty-four  thousand 
tenement-house  owners  and  saw  to  it  that  they  repaired 
their  property  according  to  law.  They  cleared  out  eleven 
thousand  cellars  and  halls  full  of  rubbish  and  filth ; 
cleaned  thirteen  thousand  ceilings  and  fifteen  thousand 
walls;  put  down  ten  thousand  new  floors  and  placed 
seventeen  hundred  fire  escapes.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
remember  these  figures ;  simply  notice  what  a  great  work 
was  done  in  a  short  time. 


REFORMS  21 

As  this  was  going  on  tenants  were  encouraged  to 
complain  to  the  department  about  owners  who  were  not 
keeping  their  houses  up  to  the  standard  of  the  law. 
Twenty-five  thousand  of  these  complaints  came  and 
were  looked  into.  Some  of  them  were  certainly  not 
very  reasonable ;  for  Mr.  De  Forest,  from  whose  report 
I  take  many  of  these  facts,  says  that  one  old  lady  was 
indignant  because  the  department  did  not  clear  the  fleas 
out  of  her  room,  while  another  wanted  somebody  to 
stop  the  janitor  from  raising  dust  when  he  swept,  —  a 
most  important  point,  yet  the  department  could  not 
take  charge  of  such  details. 

With  so  much  being  done,  New  York  was  cleaner 
and  in  better  health  in  1903  than  ever  before.  As 
Mr.  Riis  says,  she  had  made  fifty  years'  progress  in  four 
years ;  and  the  one  great  fact  that  proved  this  was  the 
change  in  her  death  rate.  I  give  a  table  covering  several 
years  to  show  the  gain : 

*  Deaths  per 

Thousand 

1866 33-00 

1887  ...... 26.00 

1897  ...•.....-.* 20.03 

IpOl  .       •<.-•.«     *'..'. 20.00 

1902  ....'. .  18.70 

1903 i8.ii 

If  the  population  of  New  York  City  is  four  million,  as 
it  soon  will  be,  a  small  change  in  the  death  rate  makes 
a  large  change  in  the  whole  number  of  those  who  die. 


22  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Indeed,  in  this  case,  even  the  figures  at  the  right  of  the 
decimal  point  become  an  important  matter.  Let  one 
additional  life  be  saved  for  every  thousand  people  every 
year,  and  enough  will  be  kept  alive  to  fill  a  good-sized 
village.  Notice  the  following  figures  carefully : 

4,000,000  dying  at  rate  of   26  per  1000  a  year=  104,000 

«              "  "  "     20  "        «  "      =  80,000 

«              "  "  «     18  "        "  «      =   72,000 

«              "  »  "17  "        »  "       =  68,000 

In  New  York  City,  therefore,  if  the  death  rate  should 
be  seventeen  instead  of  eighteen  out  of  every  thousand, 
four  thousand  lives  would  be  saved  in  one  year.  This  is 
worth  striving  for. 

In  tenement-house  improvement  Boston  has  worked 
as  well  as  New  York.  Indeed,  since  1890  there  have 
been  citizens'  movements  in  Chicago,  Philadelphia, 
Cleveland,  Washington,  Baltimore,  St.  Louis,  Cincinnati, 
Kansas  City,  and  thousands  of  smaller  places.  Cities 
take  lessons  from  each  other,  and  the  larger  the  city  the 
larger  the  lesson.  For  this  reason  New  York  City  is  the 
best  place -to  study  overcrowding  and  reforms,  for  no 
city  in  the  United  States  can  compare  with  New  York 
in  size  and  in  improvement  of  tenement  houses. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EXPENSE  OF  ALCOHOL  TO  STATE  AND  CITY 

When  reforms  are  such  an  expense  to  a  city,  it  is  well 
for  the  citizens  to  know  what  other  expenses  must  be 
met,  and  to  decide  whether  money  is  being  wasted  in  any 
way.  We  learn  something  about  this  from  the  state  of 
Massachusetts,  for  this  state  leads  the  country  in  the  way 
she  has  studied  the  expense  of  crime  to  both  the  city  and 
the  state. 

In  1880  a  certain  committee  of  men  proposed  to  find 
out  the  exact  connection  between  crime  and  alcohol,  and 
to  do  it  they  kept  track  of  the  work  done  by  nine  crimi- 
nal courts  in  Suffolk  County.  These  remarkable  figures 
show  what  they  discovered : 

Sentences  for  drink 12,221 

Sentences  for  illegal  selling 68 

Sentences  for  other  crimes 4,610 

Total  sentences  in  Suffolk  County  for  one  year      .     .     .  16,899 

Notice  the  difference, — twelve  thousand  alcohol  arrests 
and  four  thousand  arrests  for  all  the  other  crimes  put 
together !  Such  was  the  record  for  one  year.  But  it  seems 
that,  for  twenty  previous  years,  the  same  sort  of  statistics 

23 


24  TOWN  AND  CITY 

had  been  kept.  They  show  that  during  that  time  sixty 
sentences  out  of  every  hundred  in  the  whole  state  of 
Massachusetts  were  for  what  are  called  "  liquor  offenses." 

Matters  did  not  improve  fast  after  that,  for  in  1895 
the  same  committee  studied  again,  and  found  that  during 
the  year  sixty-six  sentences  out  of  every  hundred  in  the 
state  were  for  actual  drunkenness.  Besides,  there  were 
thousands  of  cases  where  men  were  under  the  influence 
of  alcohol  when  they  planned  or  committed  their  crime. 
With  these  included,  the  committee  found  that  for  a  single 
year  eighty-six  out  of  every  hundred  who  were  sentenced 
could  point  to  alcohol  as  the  cause  of  their  disgrace. 

This  is  bad  enough,  but  it  is  not  all.  Think  of  the 
"Animals  and  Alcohol"  chapters  in  Good  Health 
(Grade  4),  and  remember  how  it  turned  out  with  the 
unfortunate  pups  of  those  unfortunate  dogs.  As  for 
human  beings,  the  case  seems  to  be  worse  yet. 

Elmira,  New  York,  has  a  large  reformatory  for  con- 
victs, who  come  from  all  parts  of  the  state.  They 
often  live  to  be  honest  law-abiding  citizens  afterwards ; 
but  there  is  this  remarkable  fact  about  them,  which  was 
shown  in  1900.  During  that  year  there  were  9344  con- 
victs in  the  reformatory,  and  of  these  3363  had  drunken 
ancestors,  —  a  little  more  than  one  third  !  Clearly  enough 
the  state  had  to  meet  extra  expense  in  carrying  on  the 
reformatory  just  because  those  ancestors  who  drank  had 
given  weak  characters  to  their  descendants. 


EXPENSE  OF  ALCOHOL  TO  STATE  AND  CITY         25 

Of  course  no  one  can  ever  guess  how  much  a  state 
loses  by  inheriting  weak  citizens  instead  of  strong  ones, 
for  the  weak  will  always  be  a  burden,  while  the  strong 
help  in  every  way.  But  the  actual  number  of  prisoners 
can  be  counted.  Moreover,  people  know  what  it  costs 
to  arrest  and  try  them ;  they  also  know  how  much  it 
costs  to  keep  them  in  jail  and  feed  and  clothe  them. 
And  when  all  these  items  are  added  together,  it  is  not 
hard  to  decide  what  part  of  this  expense  belongs  to 
alcohol.  Then,  too,  there  are  the  poorhouse  bills  that 
come  through  alcohol.  Now  the  point  to  keep  in  mind 
is  that  all  these  bills  are  paid  by  the  people  of  the  state 
through  their  taxes. 

The  statistics  of  London  show  that  the  city  pays 
five  million  dollars  a  year  for  the  expense  of  its  drunken 
paupers. 

Mr.  Henry  M.  Boies,  who  has  studied  the  subject 
for  years  in  America,  says  that  the  crime  committed  in 
the  United  States  costs  at  the  rate  of  $6.20  a  year  for 
each  man,  woman,  and  child  in  our  country.  He  also  says 
that  alcohol's  share  in  the  expense  of  this  crime  is  about 
$4.34  for  each  person.  Drunkenness  alone,  he  tells  us, 
costs  the  United  States  four  hundred  and  twenty  million 
dollars  a  year. 

Do  not  try  to  remember  any  of  these  large  numbers, 
but  be  sure  to  remember  that  it  is  almost  always  other 
people  who  pay  the  drunkard's  bills,  and  not  the  man 


26  TOWN  AND  CITY 

himself.  They  pay  them  by  supporting  jails,  reforma- 
tories, asylums,  hospitals,  and  courthouses;  for  alcohol 
takes  more  people  to  these  places  than  any  other  one 
thing,  and  while  they  are  there  very  often  the  city  has 
to  take  care  of  their  families  besides.  No  wonder  thou- 
sands of  people  are  asking  whether  it  is  worth  while,  — 
whether  it  would  not  be  more  sensible  to  get  rid  of  crimes 
that  come  from  alcohol,  just  as  we  get  rid  of  tuberculosis 
and  smallpox  by  getting  rid  of  the  thing  that  starts  them. 
Certain  cities  and  states  have  tried  an  experiment. 
For  a  while  they  have  allowed  men  to  sell  all  the  alcohol 
they  wished  in  public  places.  Then  again  they  have 
made  such  laws  that  it  has  been  impossible  for  anybody 
to  sell  alcohol  anywhere  except  in  the  sliest,  most  quiet 
fashion.  Both  ways  were  tried  in  Ireland  years  ago, 
Lord  Morpeth  was  secretary  of  the  country  at  the  time, 
and  these  are  his  figures : 

MURDERS,  ATTEMPTS  AT  MURDERS,  OFFENSES  AGAINST  THE  PERSON, 
AGGRAVATED  ASSAULTS,  CUTTING,  AND  MAIMING 


1837 12,096 

1838    .    . 11,058 


1839 1097 

1840 173 


In  trying  to  explain  the  sudden  change  in  the  number 
of  crimes,  Lord  Morpeth  could  think  of  but  one  reason,  — 
the  temperance  work  of  Father  Mathew.  This  good  man 
was  so  much  in  earnest  in  fighting  alcohol  that  thousands 
of  other  people  became  enthusiastic,  too.  The  movement 


EXPENSE  OF  ALCOHOL  TO  STATE  AND  CITY        27 

» 

spread  over  the  island  like  a  wave  of  the  ocean.  It  also 
swept  things  so  clean  that  there  were  only  twenty-three 
prisoners  in  Bridewell  prison  at  Dublin  instead  of  one 
hundred  and  thirty-six,  while  one  hundred  cells  were 
empty ;  and  the  Smithfield  prison  had  to  go  out  of  busi- 
ness because  there  was  no  one  to  be  locked  into  it. 

To  come  nearer  home  again,  in  1873  Vineland,  New 
Jersey,  and  New  Britain,  Connecticut,  were  towns  of 
about  the  same  number  of  inhabitants.  In  other  ways, 
however,  they  were  very  different,  as  this  table  shows : 


Vineland  New  Britain 


Cost  of  paupers  

$224. 

$8.  COO 

Cost  of  police 

$71: 

$7.  CQO 

$•310,000 

Habitual  drunkards 

27 

4Q7 

Evidently  at  that  time  any  taxpayer  in  New  Britain  had 
to  spend  a  good  deal  of  his  money  for  the  prosperity  of 
the  alcohol  business  of  the  place.  He  had  to  do  this  even 
if  he  did  no  drinking  himself;  for  he  was  taxed  to  sup- 
port the  paupers  that  alcohol  made ;  also  he  had  to  help 
pay  the  salaries  of  the  policemen,  yet  these  policemen 
spent  their  time  in  taking  care  of  people  who  drank  alco- 
hol and  ruined  the  lives  of  their  friends  and  neighbors. 

On  the  other  hand,  Vineland  had  no  such  alcohol 
expenses,  and  her  citizens  were  able  to  spend  their  money 
in  pleasanter  ways. 


28  TOWN  AND  CITY 

The  story  of  New  Britain  is  the  story  of  every  city 
that  allows  alcohol  to  be  sold  publicly.  And  always  the 
larger  the  place  the  larger  are  the  bills  which  alcohol 
runs  up  for  the  industrious  people  of  the  city  to  settle. 

Brockton,  Massachusetts,  learned  this  in  1898,  when 
her  population  was  about  forty  thousand.  She  had  kept 
saloons  out  for  eleven  years,  then  voted  to  let  them  in 
again.  The  following  figures  tell  the  history  : 

Arrests  for 
Drunkenness        Assaults 

No-saloon  year  (1897)     .........       435  44 

Saloon  year  (1898)      ......     ....     1627  77 

This  was  such  a  lesson  that  the  city  promptly  voted 
against  saloons  again,  when  we  have  : 

1899 
Arrests    ......     .     .....     ......     455 

Assaults  ..................       66 

New  York  City  has  never  tried  the  experiment  of  no 
saloons.  Instead,  here  is  her  record: 


YORK  CITY  STATISTICS  FOR  1904 
Saloons    ...............  10,821 

Arrests     ...............  133,749 

Expense  of  Police  Department     .......  $10,199,206 

Police  courts,  jails,  workhouses,  reformatories,  etc.  $1,310,411 

Hospitals,  asylums,  and  other  charities  .....  $4,754,380 

When  we  remember  the  difference  between  the  no- 
liquor  town  of  Vineland  and  the  liquor  town  of  New 


EXPENSE  OF  ALCOHOL  TO  STATE  AND  CITY        29 

Britain,  and  when  we  also  remember  the  Massachusetts 
report  on  crime  and  alcohol,  we  can  imagine  how  the 
New  York  bills  for  poverty,  crime,  police,  and  jails 
would  shrivel  if  alcohol  were  not  sold  by  those  ten 
thousand  saloons  in  the  city. 

No  good  citizen  grumbles  over  honest  city  bills  for 
useful  things.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  glad  to  be  taxed 
for  pure  water  and  gas,  for  street  cleaning,  for  schools 
and  public  buildings,  for  parks  and  the  fire  department ; 
he  wants  his  city  to  be  beautiful  and  healthful.  But  he 
does  feel  inclined  to  grumble  when  he  finds  himself  pay- 
ing heavy  taxes  for  the  support  of  something  which  harms 
the  city  beyond  measure.  For,  as  we  have  seen  already, 
those  who  use  the  most  alcohol,  those  who  fill  the  city 
with  crime  and  the  jails  with  criminals,  are  not  apt  to  be 
those  who  pay  the  bills. 

When  you  see  a  drunken  man  arrested,  or  read  of 
men  taken  to  jail  or  to  the  hospital  because  they  have 
damaged  themselves  or  other  people  by  using  alcohol, 
you  might  say  to  yourself:  "My  honest,  hard-working 
father  helps  pay  for  arresting  the  man,  for  trying  him,  for 
taking  care  of  him  in  prison,  for  feeding  and  clothing 
him  while  he  is  there ;  and  if  he  dies  in  the  place  my 
father  will  help  bury  him."  You  might  even  whisper 
to  yourself,  "If  my  father  didn't  have  to  pay  so  much 
to  help  settle  the  disagreeable  saloon  bills  of  other 
people,  he  might  have  more  money  for  himself  and  me." 


CHAPTER  V 

CLEAN  STREETS  IN  NEW  YORK 

So  far  as  health  is  concerned,  the  pictures  show  why 
clean  street  air  is  better  than  unclean  street  air  for 
breathing. 

Our  eyes  cannot  always  prove  this,  for  sometimes  one 
space  of  air  looks  quite  as  clear  as  another.  Scientists, 


FROM  CLEAN  STREET  AIR  FROM  UNCLEAN  STREET  AIR 

Each  white  spot  shows  a  colony  of  microbes 

however,  have  hit  on  a  device  for  testing  the  case  accu- 
rately. They  cover  glass  plates  with  gelatin ;  catch  on 
them  samples  of  whatever  floats  in  the  air;  let  the  mi- 
crobes stay  there  and  grow  for  a  while ;  examine  them 

30 


CLEAN  STREETS  IN  NEW  YORK  31 

with  a  microscope,  and  afterwards  even  photograph  them 
for  ordinary  people  to  see. 

The  important  discovery  which  they  make  from  all 
this  is  that  in  certain  parts  of  certain  cities  the  street  air 
is  laden  with  microbes  of  every  sort,  and  that  disease 
microbes  increase  with  the  increase  in  other  kinds. 

More  than  that,  they  find  that  the  nearer  the  ground 
the  worse  the  air  is,  whereas  the  higher  up  they  take  the 
sample  the  purer  it  becomes.  They  therefore  tell  us  that 
the  taller  the  man  the  purer  the  air  he  breathes,  and 
the  shorter  the  child  the  more  microbes  has  he  in  his 
air.  Thus  it  turns  out  that  the  matter  of  clean  streets  is 
especially  important  for  little  people. 

Then  too,  aside  from  the  microbes,  the  appearance  of 
the  streets  and  the  odors  in  them  were  enough  to  make 
New  York  decide  to  have  a  reformation  in  1895;  or 
perhaps  it  was  Colonel  Waring  himself  who  decided  on 
the  reformation,  for  just  at  that  time  he  was  chosen 
head  of  the  street-cleaning  department  of  the  city;  and 
the  result  was  a  new  era  for  New  York.  When  he 
accepted  the  position  things  were  in  such  bad  shape 
that  some  of  his  friends  told  him  he  would  be  able  to 
get  nothing  out  of  it  but  disgrace  for  himself,  and  that, 
for  his  own  sake  he  would  do  well  to  resign  and  go  back 
to  his  own  home  in  Newport.  But  he  was  not  the  kind 
of  man  to  run  away  from  hard  things;  he  simply  made 
up  his  mind  to  conquer  the  situation. 


32  TOWN  AND  CITY 

I  suppose  that  no  street  in  New  York  to-day  is  in  the 
dreadful  condition  of  those  which  he  found  on  every  side. 

On  Ludlow  Street,  [he  says]  from  the  corner  of  Stanton  the  street  was 
very  filthy.  Trucks,  wagons,  and  carts  were  standing  in  filth  of  every 
kind  from  one  to  two  feet  deep,  and  the  street  was  covered  with  old 
paper,  rags,  ashes,  garbage,  straw,  and  general  refuse.  .  .  .  On  Sullivan 
Street,  from  Houston  to  Bleecker,  barrels  of  ashes  and  garbage  were  in 
front  of  nearly  every  door;  and  along  the  side  of  the  street  piles  of 
garbage,  old  rags,  tins,  oyster  shells,  old  paper,  and  general  refuse  from 
two  to  four  feet  high,  from  which  a  bad  stench  arose. 

So  he  describes  street  after  street ;  and  it  seems  that 
the  narrower  and  more  crowded  they  were  the  more 
dreadful  was  their  condition.  As  the  explanation  of  all 
this,  Colonel  Waring  decided  that  the  whole  trouble 
came  from  mixing  politics  with  street  cleaning.  He  saw 
that  from  the  highest  overseer  down  to  men  who  did 
the  sweeping,  each  separate  man  received  his  position 
not  only  because  he  promised  to  vote  in  a  particular 
way  on  election  day,  but  also  because  he  promised  to 
get  other  men  to  vote  as  he  did;  that  is,  each  man 
received  his  position  as  a  reward  for  votes.  The  one 
important  thing  seemed  to  be  that  a  man  should  vote  as 
somebody  wished  him  to,  not  that  he  should  do  the 
work  he  was  paid  to  do. 

As  New  York  citizens  were  being  taxed  to  pay  for  street 
cleaning,  they  did  not  fancy  the  notion  of  having  their 
money  go  to  pay  for  votes  instead  of  clean  streets,  and 


CLEAN  STREETS  IN  NEW  YORK 


33 


Colonel  Waring  agreed  with  them.  He  therefore  decided 
that  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  separate  street  cleaning 
from  politics.  When  he  came  to  that  decision  his  famous 
saying  was  that  he  would  "  put  a  man  instead  of  a  voter 
behind  every  broom." 

This  does  not  mean  that  men  were  to  stop  voting;  it 
only  means  that  voting  was  not  to  interfere  with  street 
cleaning.  So  long  as  a  man  worked  well  he  was  to  keep 
his  position  no  matter 
how  he  voted,  and  when 
he  did  not  work  well 
he  was  to  go  no  matter 
whom  he  voted  for. 

With  this  arrange- 
ment lazy  and  care- 
less workers  were  soon 
dropped,  while  all  who 
were  willing  to  do 
faithful  work  stayed. 

Naturally  enough,  there  was  a  wonderful  change  at 
once.  The  streets  grew  cleaner.  Men  who  did  the 
sweeping  not  only  began  to  respect  themselves,  but  they 
were  more  and  more  respected  by  everybody  else;  so 
much  so  that  after  a  while  the  street-cleaning  depart- 
ment of  New  York  City  was  heard  of  throughout  the 
United  States  and  Europe,  and  everywhere  it  was 
spoken  of  with  admiration. 


A  STREET  SWEEPER  AND  HIS  TOOLS 


34  TOWN  AND  CITY 

The  sweepers  themselves  were  called  Colonel  Waring's 
"White  Wings"  because  their  uniform  was  a  loosely 
fitting  uniform  of  white  duck  with  a  white  helmet  to 
match.  The  suit  was  generally  changed  Mondays  and 
Thursdays,  oftener  if  necessary,  so  that  a  street  sweeper 
in  New  York  always  looked  tidy  and  clean. 

Colonel  Waring  had  over  sixteen  hundred  regular 
street  sweepers,  almost  a  thousand  cart  drivers,  besides 
foremen,  superintendents,  and  overseers ;  he  also  divided 
the  city  into  definite  sections,  and  each  man  knew  exactly 
what  part  of  a  particular  street  he  was  to  keep  clean. 
As  a  rule  each  had  charge  of  about  one  third  of  a  mile, 
but  on  particularly  crowded  streets  there  were  six 
or  seven  men  to  a  mile.  Here,  too,  each  man  had  his 
own  section,  which  he  was  to  sweep  as  many  times  a 
day  as  was  necessary  to  keep  it  clean.  No  sweeper  was 
supposed  to  work  over  eight  hours  a  day. 

Before  Colonel  Waring  took  charge  sweeping  machines 
had  been  used;  but  he  found  that  sweeping  done  by 
hand  raises  less  dust  and  leaves  cleaner  streets ;  in  New 
York  City,  therefore,  almost  all  the  sweeping  is  done  in 
this  way.  It  is  only  on  rough  cobblestone  streets,  like 
those  in  Brooklyn,  that  machines  seem  to  be  needed. 

The  newest  and  best  street-cleaning  work  is  done 
through  hose  flushing.  By  this  method  microbes  are 
flooded  out  of  the  way  instead  of  being  stirred  up  with  the 
dust  and  tossed  about  into  the  air  for  citizens  to  breathe. 


CLEAN  STREETS  IN  NEW  YORK 


35 


After  Colonel  Waring  had  been  in  charge  several 
months  it  looked  as  if  some  magician  had  been  at  work 
in  New  York,  for  everywhere  the  streets  were  really 
clean ;  on  rainy  days  there  was  little  mud,  and  on  dry 
days  little  dust.  Of  course  careless  people  continued  to 
scatter  paper  and  rubbish  about,  but  nothing  stayed  in 
sight  long.  In  fact  the  change  went  even  farther  than 


FLOODING  OFF  THE  DUST  AND  MICROBES 

that,  for  with  clean  streets  the  residents  began  to  have 
cleaner  front  steps,  cleaner  hallways,  and  cleaner  houses ; 
they  themselves  were  cleaner ;  and  even  in  the  worst  part 
of  the  city  they  were  more  careful  about  tossing  things 
into  the  street  just  to  be  rid  of  them. 

Besides  rubbish,  snow  is  a  great  city  nuisance;  and 
any  one  who  saw  how  New  York  treated  the  January 
blizzard  of  1905  realized  at  once  that  clearing  away  a 


36  TOWN  AND  CITY 

storm  like  that  is  a  very  different  matter  from  the  every- 
day business  of  keeping  the  streets  clean. 

The  city  was  white  and  quiet  and  buried  in  snow; 
her  surface  cars  were  standing  in  silent  rows ;  her  busi- 
ness was  arrested;  and  the  question  was  how  she  was 


GETTING  RID  OF  CITY  SNOW 


ever  going  to  pull  herself  out  of  the  drifts  and  begin  to 
move  around  again. 

But  she  did  it.  The  storm  was  on  Wednesday,  and  by 
Friday  night  three  hundred  thousand  cart  loads  of  snow 
had  been  taken  from  the  most  important  business  streets 
and  dumped  into  the  river.  To  do  this  ten  thousand 
men  had  worked  in  day  and  night  relays;  they  had 
used  shovels  and  picks  and  horses,  with  five  thousand 
trucks  to  draw  the  loads  away.  The  work  kept  on  for 


CLEAN  STREETS  IN  NEW  YORK  37 

days  afterwards,  and  that  one  snowstorm  cost  the  city 
about  three  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

In  every  town  and  city  there  are  two  reasons  why  snow 
should  be  cleared  away  as  soon  as  possible  after  it  falls : 

1.  City  business.    It  cannot  go  on  briskly 
when  people  cannot  travel  about. 

2.  City  health.     If  microbes  and  garbage 
collect  in  the  snow,  when  melting  time  comes 
they  are  ready  to  thaw  out  and  spread  disease 
in  the  neighborhood.    More  than  that,  thou- 
sands of  children  take  cold  every  winter  be- 
cause their  feet  have  been  in  melting  snow 
for  hours,  with  no  chance  to  dry. 

Since  no  storm  can  be  planned  for  in  advance,  and 
since  extra  street  cleaners  are  needed  as  soon  as  the 
snow  stops  falling,  the  city  lets  this  work  out  to  con- 
tractors, who  hire  thousands  of  men,  trucks,  and  truck 
drivers  in  advance  of  every  storm,  telling  them  to  be 
ready  to  begin  work  at  a  moment's  notice. 

When  the  storm  is  over,  therefore,  a  valiant  snow 
army  seems  to  spring  from  the  ground,  and  each  man 
finds  his  appointed  street.  Every  sort  of  worker  is  there 
in  every  sort  of  costume,  also  trucks  of  many  kinds,  and 
the  work  is  well  done. 

After  all,  however,  the  daily  work  of  clearing  the 
streets  is  even  more  important  than  getting  rid  of  the 
snow.  To-day  New  York  is  one  of  the  clean  cities  of 


38  TOWN  AND  CITY 

the  world.  Colonel  Waring  with  his  White  Wings 
made  the  change  between  1895  and  1898.  They  were  a 
well-trained  faithful  brigade  of  street  soldiers,  and  they 
transformed  New  York.  They  gave  her  clean  pave- 
ments, clean  feet,  better  air,  and  healthier  children; 


STREET  SWEEPERS  ON  INSPECTION  DAY 

they  set  an  example  which  has  been  followed  ever  since, 
for  Dr.  John  McGaw  Woodbury,  with  many  more  White 
Wings  than  Colonel  Waring  ever  had,  and  many  more 
miles  of  street  to  sweep,  is  keeping  up  the  record  which 
Colonel  Waring  made. 

1  In  1906  Greater  New  York  employed  2455  sweepers  who  covered  1581  miles  a 
day.    Each  day  also  75  miles  of  street  were  washed  by  hose  and  flushing  machines. 


CHAPTER  VI 
JUVENILE  STREET-CLEANING  LEAGUES 

New  York  children  took  their  part  in  the  street- 
cleaning  history  of  the  city  when  Colonel  Waring 
decided  to  start  street-cleaning  leagues. 

In  a  general  way  these  were  really  boys'  clubs  carried 
on  somewhat  like  a  parliament ;  for  the  boys  got  together, 
elected  their  own  officers,  and  prepared  a  constitution. 
This  stated  that  the  object  of  the  club  was  to  "  keep  the 
streets  in  a  clean  and  healthful  condition."  They  had 
regular  business  meetings  every  week,  and  at  their  meet- 
ings they  discussed  all  sorts  of  subjects  connected  with 
the  health  and  cleanliness  of  the  city. 

Each  club  sent  reports  to  Colonel  Waring,  telling  him 
what  had  been  done  during  the  week  in  the  way  of 
keeping  the  streets  clean,  —  picking  up  banana  skins, 
orange  peel,  paper,  etc.  The  members  also  kept  their 
eyes  open  and  reported  whenever  they  saw  that  people 
from  certain  houses  were  sweeping  rubbish  into  the 
streets,  or  breaking  any  other  street  regulation.  Thou- 
sands of  these  reports  were  received,  and  they  are  safely 
stowed  away  in  one  of  the  stables  of  the  street-cleaning 
department  of  the  city. 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


40  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Some  of  them  have  mistakes  in  spelling,  but  they  did 
such  useful  work  that  I  must  quote  one  or  two  from 
Colonel  Waring's  book,  which  gives  the  full  history  of 
these  leagues: 

COLONEL  WARING, 

Dear  Sir ;  — While  walking  through  Broome  street  Monday,  at  7.30 
P.M.  I  saw  a  man  throwing  a  mattress  on  the  street.  I  came  over  to 
him  and  asked  him  if  he  had  no  other  place  to  put  it  but  there.  He 
told  me  that  he  does  not  know  any  other  place.  So  I  told  him  in  a 
barrel,  and  then  he  picked  it  up  and  thanked  me  for  the  inflammation 

1  gave  him.    I  also  picked  up  35  banana  skins,  43  water  mellon  shells, 

2  bottles,  three  cans,  and  a  mattress  from  Norfolk  street. 

METROPOLITAN  LEAGUE 

I  saw  a  man  eating  a  banana.  He  took  the  skin  and  threw  it  on 
the  sidewalk.  I  said  to  him  "  please  sir  will  you  be  so  kind  and  pick  it 
up,"  and  he  said  «  all  right."  JUVENILE  PROGRESS  CLUB 

To  COL.  WARING;  —  Distinguished  a  bonfire  on  5th  St.  between 
Ave.  C  and  D.  INDUSTRIAL  LEAGUE 

The  officers  gave  heed  to  these  reports,  and  law- 
breakers were  either,  punished  or  cautioned.  This  did 
good  promptly,  and  all  sorts  of  people  grew  more  inter- 
ested and  more  intelligent  on  the  subject  every  day. 
Then  too  the  street-cleaning  department  gave  badges  of 
honor  to  those  boys  and  girls  who  sent  in  reports  which 
showed  that  they  were  really  working  for  the  interests  of 
the  city.  The  badges  were  made  of  German  silver  ;  they 


JUVENILE  STREET-CLEANING  LEAGUES  41 

were  eight  sided,  engraved  and  polished,  and  a  certificate 
signed  by  Colonel  Waring  himself  went  with  each 
badge.  Some  members  of«  the  league  received  the  rank 
of  "  helpers  " ;  others  were  "  foremen  "  and  others  "  super- 
intendents " ;  they  were  always  advanced  according  to 
their  diligence. 

Clubs  now  became  so  popular  in  the  public  schools 
that  from  one  part  of  the  city  and  another  came  com- 
mittees of  boys  with  the  petition:  "  Please  may  we 
have  a  club  ?  " 

"Why  do  you  want  a  club?"  Colonel  Waring  asked 
one  day. 

"  Oh,"  they  said,  "  the  boys  on  our  block,  they  knock 
bananas,  shells,  and  all  dirty  things  in  the  street,  and  we 
want  to  reform  them." 

"  But  perhaps  the  boys  are  very  bad  and  don't  want  to 
be  reformed,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  yes,  they  do,"  one  of  them  answered.  "  We 
asked  them,  and  they  all  said  they  did." 

This  account  is  quoted  from  Colonel  Waring's  book. 

So  the  clubs  were  started  one  after  another  in  1896 
and  1897.  Public-school  boys  and  girls  were  proud  of 
their  clean  city,  and  they  resolved  to  keep  it  clean.  At 
the  same  time  mass  meetings  were  held  in  different 
places,  where  city  officials  talked  and  where  the  children 
sang  street-cleaning  songs.  On  the  next  page  read  one 
of  them :  it  is  long,  but  they  sang  it  with  enthusiasm. 


TOWN  AND  CITY 

NEIGHBOR  MINE 

There  are  barrels  in  the  hallways, 

Neighbor  mine ; 
Pray  be  mindful  of  them  always, 

Neighbor  mine. 

If  you  're  not  devoid  of  feeling, 
Quickly  to  those  barrels  stealing, 
Throw  in  each  banana  peeling, 

Neighbor  mine  ! 

Do  not  drop  the  fruit  you're  eating, 

Neighbor  mine, 
On  the  sidewalks,  sewer,  or  grating, 

Neighbor  mine. 

But  lest  you  and  I  should  quarrel, 
Listen  to  my  little  carol ; 
Go  and  toss  it  in  the  barrel, 

Neighbor  mine  ! 

Look  !  whene'er  you  drop  a  paper, 

Neighbor  mine, 
In  the  wind  it  cuts  a  caper, 

Neighbor  mine. 

Down  the  street  it  madly  courses, 
And  should  fill  you  with  remorses 
When  you  see  it  scare  the  horses, 

Neighbor  mine  ! 

Paper-cans  were  made  for  papers, 

Neighbor  mine ; 
Let 's  not  have  this  fact  escape  us, 

Neighbor  mine. 


JUVENILE  STREET-CLEANING  LEAGUES  43 

And  if  you  will  lend  a  hand, 
Soon  our  city  dear  shall  stand 
As  the  cleanest  in  the  land, 
Neighbor  mine. 

In  all  this  the  children  felt  that  the  city  in  which  they 
lived  was  their  city,  and  that  they  wanted  to  help  make 
it  the  cleanest,  most  healthful  city  in  the  world.  The 
clubs  all  used  the  same  pledge,  which  I  give : 

CIVIC  PLEDGE 

We,  who  soon  are  to  be  citizens  of  New  York,  the  largest  city  on  the 
American  continent,  desire  to  have  her  possess  a  name  which  is  above 
reproach.  And  we  therefore  agree  to  keep  from  littering  her  streets, 
and,  as  far  as  possible,  to  prevent  others  from  doing  the  same,  in  order 
that  our  city  may  be  as  clean  as  she  is  great  and  as  pure  as  she  is  free. 

In  1896  there  was  a  monstrous  parade  of  the  leagues. 
The  girls  rode  on  trucks  with  four  horses  to  draw  them ; 
the  boys  marched,  wearing  their  badges  and  their  white 
caps,  and  grown-up  citizens  along  the  route  cheered 
them  on. 

Perhaps  some  of  those  who  cheered  did  not  under- 
stand English,  for  we  read  that  in  various  parts  of  the 
city  street-cleaning  league  boys  and  girls  had  to  trans- 
late the  street  regulations  to  their  parents ;  yet  this  also 
was  most  useful  service. 

Indeed,  the  work  which  those  children  did  on  every 
hand  was  so  important  and  successful,  and  they  did  it 


44  TOWN  AND  CITY 

with  such  enthusiasm,  that  other  cities  heard  about  it. 
Men  from  Boston  and  Chicago  then  went  to  New  York 
on  purpose  to  see  just  what  was  being  done  and  just 
how  it  was  done,  while  young  citizens  in  Philadelphia, 
Pittsburg,  Utica,  Denver,  and  other  places  started  clubs 
of  their  own  in  imitation  of  New  York. 

The  real  object  of  each  of  these  juvenile  city  leagues 
is  to  make  it  easy  for  boys  to  pull  together  in  ways  that 
are  useful  to  themselves  and  useful  to  their  city.  They 
help  by  sending  reports  to  headquarters,  by  being  careful 
never  to  toss  waste  of  any  sort  into  the  street,  and  by  en- 
couraging others  to  be  as  thoughtful  as  they  themselves 
are  in  everything  that  pertains  to  the  welfare  of  the  city. 

For  two  reasons  it  is  best  to  let  the  street  cleaners 
themselves  do  the  actual  work  of  gathering  city  rubbish  : 

1.  Because  no  one  knows  what  variety  of 
disease  microbes  may  be  on  it. 

2.  Because  street  cleaners  have  convenient 
tools  for  the  work  and  do  not  need  to  touch 
the  rubbish  with  their  hands. 

The  truth  is,  of  course,  that  no  boy  who  has  once  been 
a  member  of  an  active  juvenile  league  can  ever  be  en- 
tirely thoughtless  about  his  duty  as  a  citizen.  Indeed 
those  who  are  children  to-day  will  be  voting  citizens 
soon,  and  the  better  acquainted  they  are  with  city  laws 
and  health  laws,  the  better  prepared  will  they  be  to  serve 
the  city  both  as  voters  and  as  officers. 


CHAPTER   VII 

GARBAGE,  ASHES,  AND  RUBBISH 

To  avoid  mistakes  from  ignorance  and  carelessness, 
the  street-cleaning  department  of  New  York  City  has 
published  cards  which  give  definite  instructions.  The 
copy  which  I  own  has  a  queer  pink  color,  —  to  keep  it 
from  being  lost  among  white  cards,  I  suppose,  —  and 
there  are  directions  on  both  sides  of  it.  As  every  word 
is  important,  both  sides  are  printed  on  the  following 
page. 

When  all  good  citizens  have  followed  the  directions 
of  their  different  cards,  and  when  the  street  sweepers 
have  gone  through  the  streets  with  their  two-wheeled 
bag  carriers  that  stretch  the  bags  open  to  receive  the 
dust,  with  their  empty  jute  bags  to  hold  the  sweepings, 
and  with  their  long  broom,  their  short  broom,  and  their 
sprinkler;  when  finally  they  have  filled  these  bags  with 
the  sweepings,  tied  them  up,  and  put  them  on  the  edge 
of  the  sidewalk  to  be  taken  away,  then  the  carts  and  the 
horses  pass  slowly  down  the  street  and  collect  the  differ- 
ent wastes  of  the  city,  —  the  garbage,  rubbish,  ashes,  and 
street  sweepings.1 

1  In  1906  there  were  1316  drivers  of  carts  that  collected  this  city  waste. 

45 


46  TOWN  AND  CITY 


DEPARTMENT  OF  STREET  CLEANING,  1 3  Park  Bow,  N.  Y.  City, 

It  is  forbidden  by  City  Ordinance  to  throw 
any  scrap  or  article  into  the  street,  or 

PAPER,,    NEWSPAPERS,   Etc. 

ASHES  OR  DIRT. 

GARBAGE    OR  OFFAL. 

BANANA   SKINS. 

ORAIffGE  PEEL  AND  THE  LIKE. 

GARBAGE  WILL  BE  COLLECTED  BEFORE  12  O'CLOCK,  NOON. 

Do  not  sweep  the  dirt  from  the  sidewalk  into  the  street.     Sweep  the  dirt  into  a  pile 
on  the  sidewalk,  pick  it  up  and  put  it  into  the  ash  can. 

To  sweep  the  dirt  from  the  sidewalk  into  the  street  after  the  street   has  been 
cleaned  is  a  violation  of  the  law.       Keep  your  sidewalks  clean. 

THIS  LAW  WILL  BE  STRICTLY  ENFORCED. 

JOHN  McGAW  WOODBURY,  Commissioner. 


It  is  on  this  point  that  citizens  are  most  likely  to  be 
ignorant  and  therefore  careless.    They  do  not  always 


DEPARTMENT  OF  STREET  CLEANING,  1 3  Park  Row,  N.  Y.  City 

KEEP   YOUR    MATERIALS    SEPARATE 

The  Sanitary  Code  Section  10$.  requires  householder*  and  occupants  to  provide  separate  receptacles 
for  Ashes  and  Garbage  and  forbid*  mixing  these  in  the  same  receptacle. 

THIS   LAW  WILL  BE  STRICTLY   ENFORCED. 
GARBAGE  ASHES  RUBBISH 

GARBAGE^RECEPTACLES       ASH  RECEPTACLES        RUBBISH  BUNDLES 

Kitchen  or  Table  Waste    Ashes  Paper,  Pasteboard,  Etc. 

Vegetables                               Sawdust  Rags,  Mattresses,  Carpets 

Meats                                         Floor  Sweepings  Old  Furniture,  Oil  Cloths 

Fish                                            Street  Sweepings  Old  Shoes,  Flower  Stems 

Bones                                         Bottles  Leather  &  Leather  Scrap 

Fat                                             Broken  Glass  Tobacco    Stems 

Fruit                                            Broken  Crockery  Straw  and  |  From  Householder* 

AH  Tin  Cans  Excelsior    (            only. 

""Oyster  and  Clam  Shells  (All  nihbiab  such  as  described  in  this 

column  must  be  securely  bundled  and 

•Oyster  and  Clam  shells  will  not  be  tied.    Boxes  and  barrels  filled  with  pa- 
removed  from  fish  dealers,  but  must  per.  etc  ,    will  be  removed  with  eon- 
be  removed  at  their  own 'expense.  tents,  ami  the  boxes  or  barrels  will  not 
be  returned.) 

All  rubbish  described  in  third  column  uiusu  tie  kept  in  doors,  au.l  when    ready   l»r  rrmoTal   the  Ked 

"P.  &  R."  most  be  hong  in  a  conspicuous  place,  and  the  driver  of  the  papwr  cart  will  call  for  sach  rubbish. 

JOHN  McGAW  WOODBURY,  Commissioner. 


know  why  the  city  takes  such  pains  to  put  different 
articles  into  different  receptacles.    Indeed,  thousands  of 


GARBAGE,  ASHES,  AND  RUBBISH 


47 


people  have  no  idea  what  becomes  of  the  waste  after  the 
carts  have  moved  out  of  sight  around  the  corner;  yet 
its  destination  explains  the  need  of  separating  one  kind 
from  another. 

Before  1896  very  little  separating  was  done.  All  kinds 
of  garbage  and  rubbish  went  into  the  same  carts,  at  the 
same  time,  and  were  carried  to  the  same  dumping  boats. 


UNLOADING  GARBAGE  WITH  PITCHFORKS 

There  rag  pickers  and  bone  pickers  paid  the  city  for  the 
privilege  of  sorting  out  what  they  wanted,  while  the  rest 
of  the  terrible  mixture  was  taken  ten  miles  out  to  sea 
and  thrown  overboard. 

Naturally  enough,  winds  and  storms  drove  part  of  it 
back  to  shore  again.  One  of  the  regular  complaints  at 
the  bathing  beaches  was  that  boxes  and  barrels,  melon 


48  TOWN  AND  CITY 

rinds,  cabbage  leaves,  and  truck  of  every  sort  annoyed 
the  bathers  by  floating  around  among  them  or  drifting 
upon  the  beaches. 

Colonel  Waring  decided  that  the  whole  system  of  ocean 
dumping  was  untidy,  unsanitary,  extravagant,  and  dis- 
graceful for  so  large  a  city  as  New  York.  He  therefore 
appointed  committees  to  study  into  the  subject  of  city 
waste.  And  the  work  which  he  did  through  these 
committees  is  the  basis  for  what  New  York  City  is 
doing  to-day.  Their  first  decision  was  that  different 
kinds  of  refuse  need  different  kinds  of  treatment.  This 
meant  that  each  kind  must  have  its  separate  receptacle 
at  each  house,  and  its  separate  cart  to  carry  it  to  its 
special  destination.  The  committees  then  arranged  it  all 
so  well  that  these  destinations  have  now  become  as  inter- 
esting as  any  other  sights  in  New  York  City. 

Visitors  to  Riker's  Island  believe  this.  They  see  that 
instead  of  throwing  hundreds  of  tons  of  ashes,  street 
sweepings,  and  rubbish  into  the  ocean  every  year,  New 
York  is  actually  making  solid  ground  out  of  these  waste 
things. 

It  costs  the  city  about  ten  thousand  dollars  an  acre 
to  make  the  land ;  but  when  it  is  made  it  will  be  worth 
at  least  twelve  thousand  dollars  an  acre,  —  which  shows 
pretty  good  management. 

The  steps  to  the  land  making  are  these.  Ashes  from 
the  ash  cans  of  the  houses  and  bags  of  street  sweepings 


GARBAGE,  ASHES,  AND  RUBBISH 


49 


from  different  parts  of  the  city  are  gathered  up  by  the 
ash  carts.  Neither  this  nor  any  other  kind  of  cart  that 
carries  city  waste  is  allowed  to  trot  through  the  streets. 
For  this  reason  everywhere  they  move  in  slow  proces- 
sions, first  loading  up,  then  traveling  to  different  places 
on  the  water  front,  where  they  dump  their  contents. 
Sometimes  the  sweepings  are  sold  to  people  who  buy 


AN  ASH  CART  COLLECTING  FOR  RIKER'S  ISLAND 

them  to  use  as  fertilizers;  otherwise  the  ashes  and 
sweepings  go  in  scows  to  Riker's  Island  in  East  River. 
There  they  are  dumped,  and  the  land  grows  fast.  During 
each  month  of  1903  over  one  hundred  thousand  cubic 
yards  of  ashes  went  into  the  inclosures  which  are  being 
filled  to  make  this  island.  It  cost  the  city  seventeen 
cents  a  cubic  yard  to  get  it  there. 


50  TOWN  AND  CITY 

The  ashes  are  packed  in  until  the  new  land  stands 
six  or  eight  feet  above  water  at  high  tide.  Then,  instead 
of  more  ashes,  sixteen  inches  of  good  earth  is  added,  so 
that  trees  and  grass  may  finally  have  a  chance  to  grow 
on  the  manufactured  island. 

To  start  with,  Riker's  Island  was  only  eighty-seven 
acres  in  extent.  But  the  plan  is  to  turn  it  into  a  three 
hundred  and  twenty  acre  island.  It  will  then  be  twice 
as  large  as  Black  well's  Island.  When  the  work  is  done 


BUILDING  RIKER'S  ISLAND 

New  York  City  may  move  her  hospitals  and  her  peni- 
tentiaries from  Blackwell's  to  Riker's  Island.  Thousands 
of  people  are  hoping  that  when  that  time  comes  Black- 
well's  Island  will  be  turned  into  a  beautiful  park  with 
athletic  grounds  for  the  city. 

So  much  for  the  good  management  that  turns  ashes 
and  street  sweepings  into  valuable  land.  But  the  fate 
of  rubbish  bundles  is  quite  as  interesting. 

These  are  gathered  by  large  carts,  because  the  loads 
are  lighter  and  more  clumsy.  In  these  loads  every  sort 


GARBAGE,  ASHES,  AND  RUBBISH  51 

of  thing  is  found,  from  rags  and  tobacco  pipes  to  worn- 
out  mattresses  and  useless  carpets.  In  truth,  many 
people  cast  aside  all  sorts  of  things  that  can  be  used  by 
other  people.  There  is  so  much  of  this  done  that  con- 
tractors are  willing  to  pay  the  street-cleaning  department 


SORTING  CITY  RUBBISH 

thousands  of  dollars  a  year  for  the  privilege  of  pick- 
ing out  what  they  want  from  this  rubbish  before  it  is 
burned  up  or  thrown  away. 

The  modern  method  is  for  the  rubbish  bundles  to  be 
cut  open  and  spread  on  what  is  called  a  moving  belt. 


52  TOWN  AND  CITY 

This  belt  is  about  eighty  feet  long,  and  it  moves  slowly, 
slanting  upwards. 

A  row  of  men  stands  on  each  side  and,  as  the  belt 
moves  by,  each  man  picks  from  it  the  particular  kind  of 
thing  that  the  contractor  has  told  him  to  fill  his  barrel 
with,  —  paper,  rags,  old  shoes,  or  carpets.  It  is  a  wonder 
how  much  is  wanted. 

The  mouth  of  a  furnace  is  at  the  highest  point  of 
the  belt,  and  all  that  escapes  the  hands  of  the  pickers 
goes  into  it  and  is  burned.  This  burning  makes  a  fire 
hot  enough  to  keep  a  steam  engine  going,  and  the  engine 
moves  the  belt. 

All  this  describes  a  rubbish  incinerator.  New  York 
City  has  two.  Soon  after  the  first  one  of  these  was 
started,  on  Forty-seventh  Street,  it  used  one  hundred 
loads  of  rubbish  each  day,  and  a  certain  contractor  paid 
two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  week  for  the  privilege 
of  sorting  out  what  he  wanted  from  the  belt  as  it  car- 
ried its  dilapidated  treasures  to  the  furnace.  The  second 
incinerator  is  under  Williamsburg  Bridge.  Here  the  heat 
from  the  burning  of  the  rubbish  not  only  turns  the  belt, 
but  supplies  power  enough  to  provide  Williamsburg 
Bridge  with  electric  lights,  and  heat  enough  to  warm 
the  neighboring  public  schools  in  winter. 

Fire  helps  New  York  in  garbage  disposal,  too,  —  but 
not  by  burning  it  up.  Get  a  special  permit  and  then  go 
to  Barren  Island,  Jamaica  Plain,  Brooklyn,  and  watch 


GARBAGE,  ASHES,  AND  RUBBISH 


53 


the  process.  See  the  scows  arriving  with  their  loads  of 
garbage  from  the  New  York  water  front.  Each  one 
carries  three  hundred  tons,  and  altogether  they  carry 
to  Barren  Island,  twenty-five  miles  away,  about  one 


SAVING  TREASURES  FROM  THE  TRAVELING  BELT 

thousand  tons  of  garbage  a  day.  More  garbage  is  dis- 
posed of  on  that  island  every  day  than  in  any  other 
place  in  the  world,  and  they  do  it  scientifically.  They 
even  turn  this  unpleasant  city  waste  to  good  account. 


54 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


The  unloading  with  shovels  and  pitchforks  is  simple 
enough ;  then  follows  the  interesting  part  of  the  process. 
All  that  mass  of  garbage  is  put  into  monstrous  kettles 
that  hold  eight  tons  apiece,  and  there,  with  a  good  deal 
of  water,  it  is  steamed  steadily  for  eight  hours.  Besides 
the  fragments  and  remnants  of  food,  the  potato  skins 


DIGESTERS  IN  A  Row  ON  BARREN  ISLAND 

and  banana  skins  for  nearly  four  million  people,  dead 
horses  go  into  the  digester,  too ;  also  dead  cats  and  dogs. 
Any  animal  that  dies  on  the  streets  of  New  York  City 
ends  by  being  a  part  of  the  eight-ton  stew  in  one  of  the 
digesters  on  Barren  Island.  Altogether  there  are  about 
one  hundred  of  these  digesters. 


GARBAGE,  ASHES,  AND  RUBBISH 


55 


When  the  steaming  is  over  the  cooked  garbage  is  sent 
into  presses,  where  powerful  machinery  squeezes  out  the 
water  and  the  fat.  Cooling  now  separates  the  two,  and 
the  mass  of  grayish,  brownish  fat  which  rises  to  the  top 
is  packed  in  barrels  and  sold  in  Europe  and  America 
for  soap  grease,  for  pomatum,  and  various  other  purposes. 


SQUEEZING  WATER  AND  GREASE  FROM  COOKED  GARBAGE 

It  is  claimed  that  whatever  disease  microbes  were  in 
the  garbage  to  start  with  have  been  killed  by  the  heat, 
so  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  why  the  fat  should 
not  be  used  in  any  of  these  ways. 

The  solid  part  of  the  stew  is  dried,  crushed,  sifted,  and 
sold  as  a  base  for  fertilizers. 

Of  course  it  is  supposed  that  nothing  but  garbage 
goes  into  these  city  digesters.  But,  strange  to  say,  when 


56  TOWN  AND  CITY 

it  comes  to  the  sifting,  all  sorts  of  things  turn  up, — 
silverware,  boots  and  shoes,  cans,  jewelry,  and  false 
teeth.  Dr.  Woodbury  says  that  hairpins  are  the  worst: 
they  clog  the  sifting  machine.  Yet  so  many  are  found 
in  it  that  they  are  picked  out  by  the  ton  and  sold  to  the 
wire  works  to  be  used  again. 

These  things  get  into  the  digesters  because  care- 
less people  have  tossed  them  into  their  garbage  cans. 
Remember  that  when  things  are  put  into  the  wrong  can 
some  one  has  twice  as  much  trouble  at  the  other  end. 
The  man  who  is  most  loyal  to  his  city  shows  it  as  much 
by  the  manner  in  which  he  cares  for  his  rubbish  as  by 
paying  his  taxes  or  by  going  to  the  polls  and  voting  for 
upright  city  officers  on  election  day. 

The  street-cleaning  department  of  New  York  does 
three  great  things  with  waste  materials : 

1.  It  turns  ashes  and  street  sweepings  into 
valuable  land. 

2.  It  turns  garbage  and  dead  animals  into 
soap  fat  and  fertilizers. 

3.  It  sells  part  of  the  rubbish  and  burns  up 
the  rest.  At  the  same  time  the  heat  that  comes 
from  the  burning  is  so  great  that  it  is  used 
to  run  the  engine  which  moves  the  belt.  And 
probably,  when  larger  incinerators  are  built, 
it  will  be  possible  to  light  a  part  of  the  city 
with  electricity  generated  by  the  engines. 


GARBAGE,  ASHES,  AND  RUBBISH  57 

Most  important  of  all,  the  department  keeps  the  city 
clean.  Thus  it  heads  off  disease  microbes  and  preserves 
the -health  of  citizens.  This  indeed  is  what  every  city 
should  do  for  itself. 

New  York  leads  the  cities  of  the  United  States  in  the 
way  in  which  it  gets  rid  of  refuse.  This  is  so  true  that 
at  the  world's  exposition  in  St.  Louis  in  1904,  one  of  the 
most  interesting  exhibits  in  the  New  York  Building  was 
that  of  the  street-cleaning  department  of  New  York  City. 
Students  of  such  subjects,  from  all  parts  of  the  world, 
took  time  to  examine  it  thoroughly, — learning  what  they 
could  for  their  own  use  in  their  own  land. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

PARKS,   PLAYGROUNDS,    AND   PUBLIC   BATHS 

The  Spartans  were  courageous  Grecian  people  who 
wished  to  fill  their  country  with  vigorous  men  and 
women.  To  accomplish  this  they  did  two  things: 

1.  They  killed  deformed  children. 

2.  They  did  all   they  could  to  keep  the 
other  children  well,  giving  them  plenty  of 
outdoor  air  and  exercise. 

Modern  cities  are  like  the  Spartans  in  one  way,  at 
least;  for  though  they  do  not  kill  their  frail  babies  on 
purpose,  they  allow  them  to  live  in  places  which  do  kill 
them  quite  as  surely  as  if  the  deaths  were  planned  for. 

The  truth  is  that  neither  New  York  nor  any  other 
large  city  has  ever  been  very  careful  to  follow  the  second 
Spartan  rule  about  caring  for  the  health  of  the  children. 
For  years,  however,  they  have  tried  to  help  the  situation 
by  making  what  they  call  "  lungs,"  —  that  is,  parks  and 
playgrounds  for  their  citizens.  There  was  great  discus- 
sion about  this  in  New  York  City,  and  in  the  midst  of  it 
a  committee  of  men  who  were  looking  up  the  matter 
pretty  thoroughly  hit  on  a  new  strong  argument  for 
parks. 

58 


PARKS,  PLAYGROUNDS,  AND  PUBLIC  BATHS          59 

They  made  a  map  of  the  city  which  showed,  by  green 
squares,  where  the  parks  and  playgrounds  were;  then 
they  called  in  police  captains  from  different  districts  and 
asked  them  to  point  out  on  the  map  where  restless  boys 


MULBERRY  BEND  AFTER  IT  BECAME  A  PARK 

gave  the  most  trouble.  Queerly  enough,  in  every  case 
those  policemen  put  their  ringers  on  the  spots  where 
there  were  neither  parks,  playgrounds,  nor  trees.  The 
committee  thereupon  put  a  dash  of  red  on  each  of  these 
troublesome  places. 


60  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Other  policemen  said  that  the  boys  gave  them  no 
trouble  whatever ;  and  when  they  in  turn  pointed  on  the 
map,  behold  their  districts  were  in  the  region  of  parks ! 

That  was  the  new  argument.  The  committee  saw  at 
once  that,  besides  making  boys  healthier  and  happier, 
parks  did  certainly  turn  them  into  better  citizens. 

The  committee  next  stuck  pins  into  the  map  to 
show  where  the  schools  were,  for  they  wished  to  know 
where  the  children  were  thickest.  They  then  sent  this 
strange-looking  map  to  the  mayor  of  New  York;  and 
with  it  they  sent  the  copy  of  a  law  which  the  state  of 
New  York  had  made  for  the  city.  I  give  it  here: 

The  people  of  the  state  of  New  York,  represented  in  Senate  and 
Assembly,  do  enact  as  follows  : 

SECTION  i.  Hereafter  no  schoolhouses  shall  be  constructed  in  the 
city  of  New  York  without  open-air  playgrounds  attached  to  be  used  in 
connection  with  the  same. 

As  it  happened,  wherever  the  pins  were  thickest  on  the 
map,  showing  the  most  children,  there  the  red  spots 
were  thickest  too,  betraying  the  boys.  No  wonder  this 
attracted  much  attention ;  for  it  was  easy  to  see  that  if 
red  spots  were  thickest  where  schools  were  thickest, 
the  only  sensible  plan  was  to  put  green  spots  into  those 
very  regions  and  drive  red  spots  out.  In  other  words,  the 
law  was  the  most  sensible  thing  in  the  world,  for  it  pro- 
posed to  hitch  schoolhouses  and  playgrounds  together  for 
the  benefit  of  the  children.  The  city  therefore  obeyed. 


PARKS,  PLAYGROUNDS,  AND  PUBLIC  BATHS          6 1 

This  law  was  passed  in  1895.  Between  that  time  and 
1902  New  York  City  put  up  sixty-nine  new  public-school 
buildings  in  Manhattan  and  The  Bronx;  and  each  one 
of  the  sixty-nine  had  its  own  playground.  Six  of  the 
largest  and  finest  of  the  buildings  were  put  into  the  most 
crowded  parts  of  the  city.  In  these  places  land  is  so  valu- 
able that  a  part  of  the  newest  scheme  for  playgrounds  is 
to  put  them  on  the  roof  of  the  schoolhouses  themselves. 
This  lifts  the  children  above  the  dust  of  the  street,  giving 
them  the  purest  air  to  breathe  while  they  frolic  and  exer- 
cise. The  roof  playground  on  Hester  Street  holds  two 
thousand  romping  children. 

In  1903  New  York  City  looked  up  the  subject  and 
found  that  she  had  over  eleven  hundred  acres  of  ground 
in  her  different  parks,  —  surely  quite  a  large  tract  of  land. 
But,  sad  to  say,  Central  Park  and  Riverside  Park  used 
up  all  but  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  of  those  acres ;  so 
that  the  rest  of  the  city,  where  most  of  the  people  live, 
had  only  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  acres  to  be  dis- 
tributed about  in  small  patches  here  and  there.  This 
gave  but  forty  acres  to  the  million  and  a  half  people  who 
lived  in  the  most  crowded  part  of  the  city.  New  York 
is  therefore  laying  plans  for  more  parks  and  school-roof 
playgrounds. 

Other  cities  everywhere  are  doing  the  same  thing. 
Between  1898  and  1902  Boston,  for  example,  bought  up 
one  hundred  and  fifty  of  her  own  worst  tenements,  also 


62 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


eighty  stables,  pulled  them  down,  carried  them  away,  and 
in  many  cases  put  parks  in  their  places.  She  also  has  a 
great  system  of  parks,  which  covers  over  eight  thousand 
acres  round  about  the  city. 

Yet  quite  as  important  as  anything  else  is  the  Boston 
system  of  beach  baths  which  were  in  use  even  fifty  years 


OCEAN  BATHING  AT  WOOD  ISLAND  PARK  BEACH 

ago.  To-day  the  North  End  bathing  beach  is  so  abso- 
lutely free  to  everybody  that  during  the  season  the  bath- 
ing suit  itself  is  lent  free  of  charge.  At  _ Boston's  other 
city  beaches,  however,  five  cents  are  charged  for  the  use 
of  the  suit. 

The  same  facts  are  true  all  over  the  country  to-day; 
that  is,  in  certain  places  the  baths  are  absolutely  free, 


PARKS,  PLAYGROUNDS,  AND  PUBLIC  BATHS          63 

while  elsewhere  three  or  five  cents  are  charged  for  the 
use  of  towel  and  soap, 

Going  west,  we  find  that  Chicago  has  the  honor  of  being 
the  first  city  in  America  to  give  her  people  free  public 
baths  all  the  year  round.  Other  places  are,  however, 


SATURDAY  MORNING  AT  DOVER  STREET  BATH  HOUSE 
Boys  waiting  their  turn 

following  in  her  footsteps ;  and  to-day  the  United  States 
is  the  only  country  in  the  world  where  there  are  cities 
that  give  baths  to  their  citizens  as  free  as  the  air  they 
breathe.  In  Europe  and  in  England  a  fee  is  always 
charged  for  the  public  bath.  This  is  also  generally  true 
in  the  United  States,  although  here  the  number  of  free 


64  TOWN  AND  CITY 

baths  increases  every  year;  and  they  help  to  raise  the 
standard  of  cleanliness. 

Clearly  enough  the  need  is  very  great  in  New  York 
City,  for  although  the  streets  are  cleaner  than  they  were, 
although  the  tenements  are  in  better  condition,  and  the 
parks  increasing  in  number,  still  in  1901  some  one  dis- 
covered that  a  particular  district  in  the  city  had  just 
three  bath  tubs  for  the  use  of  1321  families.  This 
did  not  prove  that  those  people  did  not  want  to  bathe; 
it  simply  showed  they  had  very  little  chance  in  that 
direction. 

With  thousands  of  people  going  without  any  real  bath 
for  months  together,  the  danger  of  illness  is  increased 
both  to  the  unwashed  persons  themselves  and  to  their 
neighbors,  for  disease  microbes  thrive  best  on  unclean 
people. 

Since  New  York  believes  this  fact  thoroughly,  she  is 
providing  public  baths  as  fast  as  possible.  Some  are  in 
use  already,  others  are  being  built,  others  yet  are  planned  ; 
and  when  all  are  finished  they  will  supply  the  city  with 
thirteen  million  free  baths  a  year. 

Those  who  bathe  in  that  city  often  pay  no  money 
for  the  privilege;  nevertheless  they  do  supply  their 
own  soap  and  towel,  and  they  go  to  the  baths  by 
tens  of  thousands  every  month.  During  the  first  five 
months  of  1902  over  two  hundred  thousand  people  used 
the  Rivington  Street  bath,  while  in  the  People's  bath, 


PARKS,  PLAYGROUNDS,  AND  PUBLIC  BATHS          65 

where  a  nickel  is  charged  for  the  use  of  soap  and  towel, 
121,386  of  these  bits  of  money  poured  in  during  1901. 


SHOWER  BATHS  AT  THE  DOVER  STREET  BATHHOUSE,  BOSTON 

Along  with  all  these  facts  it  is  well  to  know  that 
public  city  baths  have  to  be  arranged  with  three  things 
in  mind: 

1.  To  accommodate  as  many  bathers  as 
possible. 

2.  To  be  as  inexpensive  as  possible. 

3.  To  run  no  risk  of  distributing  disease 
microbes  from  one  person  to  another. 


66  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Some  places  supply  tubs  ;  others  supply  shower  baths. 
The  objection  to  the  tub  is  the  time  and  expense  of  it, 
for  not  only  must  it  be  filled  for  each  person,  but  it  must 
be  emptied  as  well ;  it  must  also  be  thoroughly  scrubbed 
between  the  baths  lest  some  contagious  disease  pass  from 
one  person  to  his  successor  in  the  bath  tub. 

The  advantages  of  the  shower  bath  are : 

1.  No   time    is    spent  in   filling   tubs,    in 
emptying  and  scrubbing  them. 

2.  The  expense  of  the  shower  is  less  than 
that  of  the  tub  bath,  because  less  water  is 
used  and  because  the  apparatus  costs  less  in 
the  first  place. 

3.  No   person    runs  the  slightest  risk  of 
being  touched  by  water  that   has    touched 
another  person.    He  is  therefore  safe  from 
any  contagious  disease  which  another  might 
have  had  who  went  before  him. 

When  a  crowded  city  district  receives  the  gift  of  a 
park,  a  playground,  and  a  public  bath,  it  has  reason  to 
expect  to  turn  out  healthier,  happier,  and  better  citizens 
than  it  ever  did  before.  This  is  what  Seward  Park  is 
helping  Hester  Street  to  do.  The  place  cost  New  York 
City  a  little  over  eighteen  hundred  thousand  dollars.  It 
was  opened  in  1903,  and  it  was  the  first  park  in  the 
city  to  be  planned  as  a  playground  supplied  with  gym- 
nasium apparatus.  More  than  that,  the  apparatus  is  free 


PARKS,  PLAYGROUNDS,  AND  PUBLIC  BATHS 


67 


for  public  use;  and  even  Spartan  children  would  have 
enjoyed  it.    See  how  much  they  have : 

Swings,  teeter  balls,  tennis,  volley  ball,  croquet,  rings,  teeter  lad- 
ders, trapeze  rings,  giant  stride,  tenpins,  Indian  clubs,  jumping  ropes, 
sand  boxes,  horizontal  bars, 
parallel  bars,  chest  bars,  hori- 
zontal ladders,  inclined  lad- 
ders, trolling  rings,  flying 
rings,  bucks,  horses,  climb- 
ing ropes,  climbing  poles, 
inclined  poles,  basket-ball 
courts,  running  track,  also  a 
set  of  standards  for  pole  vault 
and  the  high  jump. 

All  this  apparatus  is 
to  be  found  at  Seward 
Park;  and  there  is  the  beautiful  pavilion  besides,  with 
free  shower  baths  for  dusty  men  and  women  and  for 
tired  boys  and  girls  after  their  gymnastic  practice. 


A  CORNER  OF  SEWARD  PARK 
Lined  up  for  a  swing 


CHAPTER   IX 

FIRES 

In  his  book  Out  of  Mulberry  Street  Mr.  Riis  describes 
the  work  of  one  of  the  New  York  "  heroes  who  fight  fire." 

There  was  the  clanging  of  bells,  the  rush  of  engines, 
the  blazing  fire  in  a  great  building,  and  a  small  boy 


A  FIRE  ENGINE 


who  clung  to  a  ledge  so  far  up  that  even  the  extension 
ladders  were  too  short  to  reach  him.  But  there  was  yet 
the  scaling  ladder,  —  the  slender  pole  with  a  hook  on  the 

68 


FIRES 


69 


end  and  bars  across  it  for 
steps.  A  fireman  used  this. 
One  by  one  he  crashed  the 
hook  through  the  windows 
above  him  and  climbed  the 
pole  like  a  fly  against  the  wall 
until  he  reached  the  boy. 

As  he  took  him  in  his  arms 
the  fire  burst  out  above  them. 
But  slowly  and  surely  he  crept 
back  by  the  way  he  had  come. 
And  when  they  reached  the 
ground  together  the  crowd 
knew  that  the  fireman  was  a 
hero.  A  great  shout  went  up. 
Women  cried,  while  strong 
men  acted  as  if  they  had  lost 
their  wits.  They  laughed;  they 
shook  hands;  they  clapped 
each  other  on  the  back.  And 
no  wonder,  for  they  had  seen 
a  man  risk  his  own  life  to 
save  the  life  of  another. 

That   is    not   a   rare   case. 
Deeds  like  that  are  done  every 
year  by  brave  firemen,  though  the  man  who  does  it  is 
apt  to  be  the  one  who  says  the  least  about  it. 


THE  SCALING  LADDER 

The  hook  at  the  top  will  be  turned 
to  catch  over  the  window  sill 
above  it 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


A  man  does  not  save  another  by  accident.  He  has  to 
know  how.  He  strives  for  it ;  he  drills  for  it.  But  before 
the  striving  and  the  drilling  there  must  come  a  clear 
head  and  steady  nerves,  for  the  drill  tests  both  of  these. 

When  he  drills  a 
man  must  learn  to 
jump  from  a  third-story 
window  into  a  fire  net 
without  a  moment's 
hesitation ;  he  must  be 
strong  enough  and 
skillful  enough  to  use 
the  slender  scaling  lad- 
der; he  must  learn  to 
pull  a  fellow  fireman 
through  a  fourth  or 
fifth-story  window  and 
carry  him  safely  to  the 
ground.  He  must  also 

A  WATER  TOWER  be    abje     to     rdax    hig 

It  pours  a  stream  of  water  into  a  high  building      musdeg  .    he    mugt    ^ 

as  if  he  had  fainted  and  let  another  man  carry  him 
down  the  dizzy  ladder  as  if  he  were  the  one  being 
rescued.  He  must  learn  how  to  stand  in  any  perilous 
place  without  being  dizzy;  he  must  be  ready  to  do  any 
dangerous  thing  without  being  afraid.  Truly  a  fireman 
needs  to  be  as  brave  as  he  is  strong. 


FIRES  71 

If  he  finds  that  he  loses  his  head,  or  is  dizzy  or  afraid ; 
if  he  cannot  climb  and  jump  fearlessly,  and  crawl  through 
suffocating  smoke,  he  may  be  useful  somewhere  else  in 
the  world,  but  he  cannot  be  a  successful  fireman.  In 
1903  there  were  over  seven  thousand  men  in  the  service 
in  Greater  New  York,  and  the  city  paid  about  five 
million  dollars  for  their  services  that  year. 

No  doubt  their  hardest  work  is  in  the  tallest  tenement 
houses,  because  the  greatest  danger  and  the  greatest 
suffering  are  just  there.  At  the  same  time  almost  half  the 
fires  of  New  York  City  are  in  those  very  buildings.  New 
York  learned  this  when  her  tenement-house  commission 
studied  up  the  subject  of  air  shafts  and  fires. 

It  seems  that  ever  since  air  shafts  were  first  put  into 
buildings  firemen  have  said  that  they  act  like  huge 
chimneys,  drawing  the  fire  up  and  flashing  it  into  every 
window  on  the  way.  This  is  evidently  true,  for  the  same 
commission  investigated  the  course  of  three  hundred  and 
twenty-nine  great  tenement  fires,  and  found  that  fully 
one  quarter  of  them  rushed  through  the  buildings  by  the 
air-shaft  road ;  that  one  fifth  traveled  through  halls  and 
stairways,  while  another  quarter  burned  their  way  through 
floors  and  partitions.  They  accordingly  decided  that : 

1.  Air  shafts  must  not  be  allowed  in  new- 
law  tenement  houses. 

2.  Public   halls    and    stairways    must    be 
made  fireproof. 


72  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Two  fires  during  the  same  day,  one  in  fireproof  halls, 
the  other  in  non-fireproof  halls,  showed  what  the  differ- 
ence is  when  a  fire  once  breaks  out. 

The  non-fireproof  halls  were  in  Jackson  Street.  There 
the  fire  raced  through  them  to  the  halls  above ;  it  spread 
along  the  corridors,  reached  almost  every  room  in  the 
building,  and  traveled  so  fast  in  every  direction  that 
before  the  occupants  could  all  escape  eleven  were  killed 
and  six  more  injured. 

The  other  fire  was  in  Rutgers  Street.  It  could  spread 
neither  far  nor  fast  because  both  halls  and  stairways  were 
made  of  slate  and  iron,  —  that  is,  they  were  fireproof.  Of 
course  there  was  some  woodwork  about  them,  and  it  was 
burned ;  but  it  made  no  terrible  blaze ;  and  when  the  fire 
reached  the  upper  stories  it  found  doors  that  separated 
one  hall  from  another,  while  the  flames  were  only  hot 
enough  to  scorch  the  doors  on  the  side  towards  the  fire. 

Whether  the  halls  are  fireproof  or  not,  however,  New 
York  demands  fire  escapes  on  every  tall  building.  They 
are  as  necessary  for  the  entrance  of  a  fireman  who  is  to 
save  a  child  as  for  the  escape  of  a  child  who  can  save 
himself.  The  law  requires  them  on  both  the  front  and 
the  rear  of  each  tenement. 

When  they  are  omitted  sad  results  sometimes  follow. 
This  was  the  case  in  January,  1900.  A  fire  broke  out 
on  First  Avenue;  and  when  the  firemen  arrived  the 
stairs  were  in  flames,  while  the  wind  blew  other  flames 


FIRES 


73 


around  the  rear  fire  escapes. 
There  were  no  fire  escapes  in 
front,  so  that  people  above 
the  second  story  could  not 
leave.  The  firemen  worked 
tremendously  for  five  and  a 
half  hours ;  they  used  exten- 
sion ladders,  scaling  ladders, 
and  jumping  nets,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  saving  everybody 
except  Loretto  Leonard.  He 
was  six  years  old  and  was 
suffocated  on  the  fifth  floor 
before  they  could  get  him 
down. 

In  cases  like  that  all  de- 
pends on  the  firemen,  and 
they  cannot  always  save 
every  one. 

Yet  even  when  there  are 
escapes  enough,  the  way  in 
which  they  are  built  makes 
all  the  difference  in  the  world 
in  their  usefulness.  Vertical 
ladders  are  so  dangerous  that 
women  and  children  hardly 
dare  to  climb  down  on  them.  This  means  that  unless 


THE  RIGHT  KIND  OF  FIRE  ESCAPE 


74 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


the  firemen  carry  such  people  down  one  by  one  they  are 
not  saved  at  all. 

Even  with  the  best  of  fire  escapes,  however,  there 
may  be  awful  tragedy.  This  happens  when  barrels, 
boxes,  plants,  rags,  and  rubbish  are  loaded  on  the  fire 
escapes  and  balconies,  as  occurred  in  New  York  City  in 
March,  1905.  Over  forty  citizens  were  injured  in  that 


AN  ENCUMBERED  FIRE  ESCAPE 

fire,  and  nineteen  were  burned  to  death.  Some  were  on 
the  fire  escapes ;  they  had  tried  to  climb  down,  but  rub- 
bish of  every  sort  had  caught  them  there  and  hindered 
them  until  even  the  firemen  could  not  save  them. 

There  are  strict  laws  against  encumbering  the  fire 
escapes,  and  the  fine  for  breaking  the  law  is  ten  dollars. 

If  you  are  ever  caught  in  a  burning  building  where 
there  is  no  school  fire  drill  to  obey,  do  as  the  fireman 


FIRES  75 

does  in  one  way  at  least;  that  is,  keep  a  clear  head, 
think  fast,  and  end  by  doing  sensible  and  not  foolish 
things. 

When  you  are  sure  there  is  a  fire,  shout  aloud  to  notify 
others.  Then  run  down  the  stairway  if  it  is  not  on  fire. 
If  it  is  on  fire,  go  out  at  once  to  the  fire  escape ;  keep  a 
steady  head  and  climb  down  carefully  step  by  step.  If 
there  is  no  fire  escape,  stand  up  in  a  window  and  look 
down.  The  firemen  will  see  you  and  they  will  hold  out 
a  jumping  net.  When  they  do  this,  do  not  hesitate  an 
instant ;  look  up  into  the  air  now  and  not  down ;  let  all 
your  muscles  be  relaxed  so  that  you  will  not  strike  with 
an  extra  bound  when  you  reach  the  net,  and  as  you  are 
looking  up  step  off  into  the  air.  In  two  seconds  you 
will  be  safe  in  the  net. 

Quickness  and  a  clear  head  have  saved  the  lives  of 
scores  of  people.  They  are  especially  useful  when  a  fire 
breaks  out  in  a  school  building. 

In  Detroit,  Michigan,  on  the  i5th  of  March,  1905, 
there  was  such  a  fire.  Six  hundred  children  were  in  the 
building  at  the  time.  The  fire  started  in  a  closet  full  of 
flags  and  ended  by  burning  up  those  flags.  But  as  soon 
as  the  gongs  were  sounded  as  a  signal  for  fire  drill  the 
children  fell  into  line  and  marched  out  in  perfect  order. 
Some  of  the  little  girls  cried  afterwards,  when  the  fire- 
men came  and  put  out  the  fire,  but  they  marched  like 
heroes  as  long  as  they  were  in  danger. 


76  TOWN  AND  CITY 

In  New  York  City,  February,  1905,  the  boys  in  a 
private  asylum  on  One  Hundred  and  Seventy-sixth 
Street  were  even  more  successful,  for  they  not  only 
marched  out  of  the  building  but  they  formed  a  fire 
brigade.  They  laid  two  lines  of  hose  to  the  hydrant, 
turned  the  water  on  the  blazing  timbers,  and  worked  so 
well  under  the  man  who  guided  them  that  when  the 
regular  firemen  came  there  was  nothing  for  them  to  .do. 
The  fire  was  so  nearly  out  that  the  chief  fireman  simply 
congratulated  the  boys  and  their  leader  and  went  away. 

I  might  go  on  mentioning  case  after  case  of  the  same 
kind,  for  thousands  of  other  American  schools  are  able  to 
march  to  safety  by  the  fire  drill.  It  is  even  more  impor- 
tant, however,  that  each  separate  child  should  learn  to 
be  careful  about  starting  fires  by  accident. 

CAUSES  OF  FIRES  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY  DURING  JUNE,  1900 

Careless  use  of  matches  ...  32  Gas  explosion    .     .     .,    .     .     .  n 

Upsetting  kerosene  lamp      .     .  4  Bedding  and  sofa  fires  1 1 

Gas  jet 5  Cellar  rubbish  igniting     ...  13 

Fat  boiling 3      Firecrackers 6 

Foul  chimney     .     .     .  ••-..     .     .  10  Spark  from  locomotive     ...  I 

Electric  wire I       Not  known 97 

Incendiary     .......  i  Clothing  and  furniture  too  near 

Carelessness  with  candle      .     .  18          stoves 22 

235 

Read  the  preceding  list  of  two  hundred  and  thirty-five 
fires  and  pick  out  those  that  came  from  carelessness. 
See  how  few  others  there  are.  The  list  is  quoted  from 
The  Tenement  House  Problem. 


FIRES  77 

To  help  save  our  neighbors  and  ourselves  from  fire, 
let  us  never  run  risks  through  carelessness  with  matches, 
with  candles,  with  firecrackers,  or  with  anything  else. 


FIRE  ESCAPE  BALCONY  AND  STAIRS,  ENCUMBERED 

Let  us  also  help  our  city  by  noticing  whether  the  fire 
escapes  are  kept  clear.  If  you  find  one  that  is  not  clear,1 
you  might  drop  a  postal  to  the  fire  department.  You  do 
not  even  need  to  sign  your  name ;  simply  say : 

The  fire  escape  at is  encumbered. 

A  YOUNG  CITIZEN. 

Remember  that  you  have  the  right  to  help  make  your 
city  safe  and  beautiful. 


CHAPTER  X 

GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL 

Not  only  are  cities  growing  more  economical  in  sav- 
ing what  they  once  wasted  and  making  money  where 
they  once  lost  it,  but  the  same  rules  are  controlling 
business  in  every  part  of  the  country.  A  certain  change 
in  the  way  alcohol  is  used  shows  this. 

Formerly  railroad  men  in  America  were  supposed  to 
use  alcohol  as  a  matter  of  course.  Saloons  were  thick 
near  every  station,  and  trainmen  visited  them  whenever 
they  pleased.  At  that  time  those  who  did  the  drinking 
were  not  the  sort  of  railroad  men  we  see  to-day.  On  the 
contrary,  in  certain  directions,  no  one  expected  much 
of  them.  They  worked  hard,  drank  often,  had  no  high 
respect  for  themselves,  and  were  not  greatly  respected  by 
others. 

To-day,  however,  the  railroad  employee  is  almost 
always  a  self-respecting,  well-clad,  strong,  and  reliable 
man.  His  officers  are  proud  of  him,  while  he  is  proud 
of  his  occupation.  The  change  has  not  come  suddenly, 
but  step  by  step,  just  as  the  business  itself  has  grown. 
Yet  the  contrast  between  the  past  and  the  present  is 
very  striking. 

78 


GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL  79 

Eighty  years  ago  locomotives  weighed  two  and  one 
half  tons  in  the  United  States.  Cars  were  small  and 
few.  Passengers  traveled  by  hundreds  instead  of  by 
thousands,  and  trains  moved  at  the  rate  of  thirty  miles 
an  hour  when  they  went  their  fastest.  But  now  (in  1906), 
some  locomotives  weigh  almost  two  hundred  tons.  They 
can  travel  seventy-five  miles  an  hour,  and  they  carry  mil- 
lions of  passengers  every  year.  Here  are  a  few  official 
figures  for  1902.  Notice  the  size,  but  do  not  try  to 
remember  them. 

Miles  of  track 202,492 

Number  of  locomotives 50,000 

Number  of  cars 1,640,000 

Number  of  passengers  carried 649,878,505 

Amount  of  freight  (in  tons) 1,200,000,000 

Employees 1,189,315 

Capital  involved $12,134,182,964 

These  figures  show  that  the  railway  tracks  of  the 
United  States  are  long  enough  to  reach  to  the  moon 
and  to  go  around  the  earth  besides.  They  show  that 
there  is  more  money  invested  in  the  railway  business 
than  in  any  other  business  in  the  country.  They  show 
that  over  one  million  people  take  charge  of  the  lives  of 
six  hundred  million  other  people  who  travel  by  rail. 
And  perhaps  they  show,  most  of  all,  that  the  success  of 
the  whole  enormous  business  depends  on  faithful  work 
done  by  faithful  men. 


8o  TOWN  AND  CITY 

When  huge  trains  are  traveling  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  a 
minute,  and  when  through  some  carelessness  there  is 
an  open  switch  or  a  wrong  light  and  a  frightful  collision, 
not  only  are  innocent  human  beings  crushed,  burned, 
and  killed,  but  the  railroad  companies  have  enormous 
bills  to  pay.  They  must  repair  their  locomotives,  rebuild 
their  cars,  relay  the  twisted  track.  More  than  that,  they 
must  pay  damages  to  wounded  men  and  women,  and 
pay  thousands  of  dollars  to  the  heirs  of  those  who  have 
been  killed. 

All  this  happened  to  the  Lake  Shore  Railroad  Com- 
pany after  an  accident  in  June,  1905.  The  train  was  mov- 
ing its  fastest  when  the  crash  came.  Nineteen  men  died, 
others  were  wounded,  and  the  cars  and  locomotives  were 
wrecked.  That  one  accident  is  supposed  to  have  cost  the 
company  not  less  than  five  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

When  wrecks  and  death  mean  such  loss  as  that,  any 
good  business  firm  does  all  it  can  to  prevent  them.  So 
in  the  railroad  business  especially  every  car,  engine,  and 
boiler  must  be  well  made ;  every  track  must  be  well  laid ; 
every  switch  must  be  closed  when  the  right  moment 
comes.  Every  flagman,  brakeman,  switchman,  track 
walker,  conductor,  and  engineer  must  be  intelligent, 
absolutely  reliable,  and  brave.  Each  must  be  ready  to 
act  on  the  instant  in  case  of  accident;  yet  each  must 
be  so  careful  and  clear-headed  that  no  act  of  his  will 
ever  bring  about  an  accident. 


GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL  8 1 

Probably  no  business  company  in  the  world  has 
studied  men  more  carefully  than  railroad  companies. 
They  need  to  know  whom  they  can  trust,  and  how  to 
get  hold  of  worthy  men ;  and  they  have  had  no  way 
to  learn  except  by  experience. 

At  first  very  little  was  said  about  alcohol,  for  in  early 
days  almost  everybody  used  it.  But  when  it  was  noticed 
that  accidents  came  oftenest  from  the  carelessness  of 
those  who  drank  alcohol,  and  when  the  company  realized 
that  the  more  their  men  drank  the  more  money  they 
themselves  lost,  they  saw  it  was  poor  business.  They 
then  decided  that  no  one  should  work  for  them  who 
ever  allowed  himself  to  get  drunk.  This  was  the  first 
step,  and  it  was  an  improvement. 

Nevertheless  they  still  kept  an  eye  on  the  accident 
record;  and  they  saw  that,  after  all,  the  really  reliable 
men  were  those  who  not  only  were,  never  drunk  but 
who  never  drank  while  on  duty.  The  company  there- 
fore took  another  step,  and  made  it  a  law  that  no  man 
should  drink  while  he  was  at  his  work.  This  kept 
thousands  of  men  steadier  then  they  had  ever  been 
before.  Travelers  were  safer,  too,  but  even  yet  it  was 
plain  that  the  most  reliable  men  of  all  were  those  who 
never  touched  alcohol,  either  on  duty  or  off  duty. 
Indeed,  such  men  were  now  in  great  demand  every  year. 
They  were  surest  to  receive  good  places,  and  surest  to 
keep  them. 


82  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Both  the  character  and  the  appearance  of  the  railroad 
man  changed  fast  after  that.  He  stopped  acting  and 
dressing  as  if  he  belonged  to  the  saloon.  Instead,  he 
finally  looked  and  acted  as  if  he  belonged  to  the  splen- 
did railroad  system  of  the  country.  These  men  became 
self-respecting,  and  they  were  greatly  respected. 

Having  gone  as  far  as  that  in  temperance  work,  the 
railroad  companies  now  took  the  most  important  step  of 
all.  Several  united  in  what  is  called  the  American  Rail- 
road Association.  This  covers  something  like  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  thousand  miles  of  track,  with  cars,  engines, 
passengers  and  trainmen  to  match. 

In  1899  the  Association  adopted  the  following  strict 
rule :  "  The  use  of  intoxicants  by  employees  while  on  duty 
is  prohibited.  Their  habitual  use  or  frequenting  of  places 
where  they  are  sold  is  sufficient  cause  for  dismissal." 

That  law  covers  the  drinking  habits  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  men,  and  it  is  strictly  enforced.  Not  only 
so,  but  other  railroad  companies  are  even  more  strict. 

The  Central  Vermont  Railway  says,  "  We  require 
from  employees  engaged  in  train  service  total  abstinence 
at  all  times,  whether  on  or  off  duty."  The  Toronto, 
Hamilton,  and  Buffalo  Railroad  Company's  rule  is, 
"  The  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  is  forbidden  under  any 
circumstances ; "  and  men  who  want  to  work  on  the 
International  and  Great  Northern  Railroad  have  to  sign 
the  following  pledge : 


GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL  83 

"  If  this  application  is  accepted,  I  agree  to  observe  all 
rules  and  regulations  of  this  company;  to  abstain  from 
the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors,  not  to  visit  saloons, 
places  of  low  resort,  or  where  liquors  are  sold,  etc." 

With  railroad  after  railroad  doing  the  same  thing,  the 
end  of  it  all  is  that,  in  the  United  States  in  1906,  about 
a  million  railroad  men  have  to  be  total  abstainers  from  all 
alcoholic  drinks,  or  run  the  risk  of  losing  their  positions. 
This  makes  the  railroads  of  the  country  the  largest,  the 
strongest,  and  the  strictest  temperance  society  in  the 
world.  It  is  powerful  because  it  turns  a  man  out  of 
business  if  he  breaks  his  pledge. 

The  curious  part  of  this  society  is  that  it  does  not 
work  for  temperance  because  it  is  anxious  about  the 
health  or  the  happiness  of  the  men  themselves,  but 
simply  because  it  is  determined  to  do  good  business,  to 
save  waste  by  accident,  and  to  make  as  much  money  as 
possible. 


CHAPTER  XI 

GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL  (continued} 

Life-insurance  companies  are  money-making  affairs, 
too,  and  some  of  them  are  doing  as  good  temperance 
work  as  the  railroads. 

In  the  first  place  their  arrangement  with  people  is 
this :  When  a  man  gets  his  life  insured  he  promises  to 
pay  the  firm  a  definite  small  sum  of  money  every  year 
as  long  as  he  lives,  and  in  return  the  firm  promises  to 
pay  his  heirs  a  definite  large  sum  when  he  dies.  Plainly 
enough,  the  longer  the  man  lives  and  pays  the  money 
the  better  the  company  likes  it ;  while  the  man  himself 
is  glad  to  do  the  living  even  if  he  has  to  do  the  paying. 
So  it  turns  out  that  long  life  satisfies  both  parties. 

As  for  what  alcohol  has  to  do  about  it,  the  proof  has 
come  in  a  natural  way.  For  generations  people  have 
been  talking  about  the  effects  of  alcohol  on  health. 
Some  thought  it  lengthened  life;  others  thought  it 
shortened  life;  but  there  were  no  figures  to  prove  the 
case  either  way  until  after  1840.  At  that  time  a  new 
sort  of  insurance  society  was  started  in  Great  Britain 
with  a  monstrous  name,  —  The  United  Kingdom  Total 

Abstinence  Life  Association,  for  the  Mutual  Assurance 

84 


GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL  85 

of  the  Lives  of  Total  Abstainers  Only.  Later  the  name 
was  changed  somewhat,  and  other  people  were  allowed 
to  be  insured  in  the  same  company. 

Since  then  the  two  parts  of  the  society,  —  one  for 
abstainers,  the  other  for  non-abstainers  —  have  gone  on 
side  by  side ;  but  all  the  records  of  the  lives  and  all  the 
records  of  money  paid  and  received  have  been  kept 
separate.  At  the  same  time  the  men  in  each  set  have 
had  the  same  sort  of  medical  examination  before  they 
were  accepted,  and  they  have  come  from  the  same  class 
of  English  people.  In  fact,  in  everything  except  alcohol 
drinking  they  have  been  alike. 

Now  come  the  interesting  facts.  The  records  cover 
sixty-one  years.  They  run  from  1840  to  1901 ;  and  the 
reports  which  Mr.  Moore  made  for  the  society  in  1903 
are  filled  with  long  tables  of  figures.  Still  the  case  can 
be  given  here  in  a  nutshell. 

It  seems  that  all  insurance  societies  use  certain  sets  of 
figures  to  show  how  long  people  are  likely  to  live  after 
any  definite  age.  For  example : 

At  20  a  healthy  man  may  expect  to  live  42  years. 

«  30  "      "          "       "         "       "     "     35       " 

«      IQ   u         i.  a          u  ..          ..       ..        28          " 

These  tables  cover  all  ages,  and  they  were  made  up 
before  any  one  thought  that  taking  alcohol  or  going 
without  it  could  make  any  difference  in  the  length  of 
time  a  man  might  live. 


86  TOWN  AND  CITY 

For  this  very  reason,  perhaps,  they  are  specially  valu- 
able now,  for  they  are  the  standard ;  and  by  comparing  the 
record  of  a  man's  life  with  the  standard  we  know  whether 
he  has  lived  longer  than  he  was  expected  to  live  or 
whether  he  has  died  sooner  than  he  was  expected  to  die. 

This  brings  us  back  to  the  first  temperance  society 
with  the  long  name.  By  crowding  Mr.  Moore's  tables 
into  the  smallest  possible  nutshell,  we  find  that  during 
those  sixty-one  years,  out  of  every  hundred  non-abstainers 
four  more  died  than  were  expected  to  die;  while  out 
of  every  hundred  abstainers  twenty-five  more  lived  than 
were  expected  to  live.  Or,  to  make  the  figures  of  the 
society  plainer  yet : 

DEATHS  DURING  SIXTY-ONE  YEARS 

Among  abstainers 1775  less  than  expected. 

Among  non-abstainers 36  more  than  expected. 

Mr.  Nelson,  another  Englishman  who  is  in  the  life- 
insurance  business,  has  separated  the  statistics  of  mod- 
erate drinkers  from  those  of  total  abstainers  and  has 
found  out  what  the  different  standards  of  life  expectation 
are  for  the  two  sets  of  people.  This  is  quite  a  different 
matter  from  the  standard  which  was  made  from  the  sta- 
tistics of  drinkers  and  abstainers  mixed  together. 

The  first  table  shows  how  many  moderate  drinkers 
die  between  certain  ages  as  compared  with  the  total 
abstainers  who  die  between  the  same  ages: 


GOOD  BUSINESS  AND  ALCOHOL  87 

Moderate  Total 

Age  Drinkers  Abstainers 

Between  1 5  and  20  1 8  die  for  every  i  o 

«        20    "30  31    «     "        "  10 

"        30     "    40  40    "     "        "  10 

If  a  man  wishes  to  know  just  how  old  he  has  a  right 
to  expect  to  live  to  be,  he  may  consult  these  other  figures 
which  Mr.  Nelson  gives.  Such  a  man  can  tell  his  pros- 
pects by  the  column  of  figures  to  which  he  happens  to 

bel°nS:  Moderate  Total 

Age  Drinkers          Abstainers 

At  20  expect  to  live  to  be       35  64 

At  30       "       «     "     "    "        43f  66£ 

At  40       "       "     "     "    "         51^  68 

When  a  moderate  drinker  learns  these  facts  and  does 
not  decide  to  be  a  total  abstainer,  it  is  clear  that  he  is 
perfectly  willing  to  rob  himself  of  his  own  life. 

These  different  facts  have  not  only  set  people  to  think- 
ing, but  they  have  also  induced  other  insurance  societies 
to  examine  their  records.  By  doing  this  they  find  that 
in  every  case  where  they  have  recorded  abstainers  and 
non-abstainers  separately  the  result  tells  the  same  story 
about  abstention  and  long  life.  The  figures  are,  indeed, 
so  convincing  that,  in  certain  insurance  societies,  the  man 
who  is  a  total  abstainer  does  not  have  to  pay  so  high  a 
rate  as  the  man  who  sometimes  uses  alcohol.- 

After  all,  however,  boys  are  far  more  apt  to  be  inter- 
ested in  the  business  of  athletics  than  in  life-insurance 


88  TOWN  AND  CITY 

societies;  and  without  being  told  anything  about  it, 
they  know  that  in  these  days  almost  every  coach  who 
trains  college  men  for  football,  baseball,  or  athletic  sports 
of  any  kind,  positively  forbids  alcohol.  Each  one  says 
he  is  training  his  men  to  win  and  that  he  will  not  risk 
alcohol. 

In  1901  the  captain  of  the  Princeton  football  team 
wrote :  "  Beer  and  other  alcoholic  liquors  are  never  used. 
I  think  a  team  is  better  off  without  them."  This  word 
comes  from  Cornell :  "  I  have  found  that  young  men  are 
much  better  off  and  do  better  work  without  than  with 
them.  They  are  therefore  absolutely  prohibited."  Other 
universities  are  just  as  firm. 

Whichever  way  we  turn,  therefore,  we  find  that  the 
habit  of  never  touching  alcohol  is  like  a  strong  engine 
pulling  a  man  along  the  road  to  success. 


CHAPTER   XII 

WATER  SUPPLY  FOR  NEW  YORK  AND  WATER  WASTE 

IN  CITIES 

For  a  city  like  New  York,  which  is  growing  fast,  and 
using  more  water  with  each  step  of  growth,  one  of  the 
most  important  questions  is,  how  to  get  enough  of  it 
to  escape  a  water  famine  during  dry  weather. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  city  had  sixty  thousand 
inhabitants ;  yet  even  then  they  were  in  need  of  more 
water.  To  get  it  they  dug  a  well  twenty-five  feet  across 
and  thirty  feet  deep,  sending  the  water  to  the  people  in 
pipes.  Seven  years  later  the  city  was  twice  as  large. 
They  now  dug  another  well,  sixteen  feet  across  and  one 
hundred  and  twenty-two  feet  deep.  After  that,  well  fol- 
lowed well,  until  1834,  when  the  demand  had  so  far 
exceeded  the  supply  that  men  were  bringing  water  in 
barrels  and  in  hogsheads  from  springs  in  the  country. 
They  sold  six  hundred  hogsheads  a  day  at  a  dollar 
and  a  quarter  apiece. 

But  no  city  can  keep  on  growing  and  depend  on  that 
kind  of  water  supply.  The  people  therefore  made  plans. 
They  studied  the  creeks,  the  springs,  and  the  rivers  for 
miles  around,  and  ended  by  deciding  to  use  Croton  River, 


9o  TOWN  AND  CITY 

forty  miles  away.  The  water  was  pure  and  there  was 
enough  of  it ;  the  only  objection  was  the  distance  from 
town.  But  a  dam  was  built  across  the  river;  and  with 
stone,  brick,  and  cement  an  aqueduct  was  made,  eight 
and  a  half  feet  in  diameter  and  forty  miles  long.  It 
passed  through  sixteen  tunnels  and  finally  crossed  a 
bridge  into  New  York  City. 

If  you  ever  visit  High  Bridge,  try  to  remember  that 
it  is  over  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long,  that  it  is  one  hundred 
and  sixteen  feet  high,  and  that  it  carries  eighty  million 
gallons  of  water  into  New  York  every  day.  It  has  been 
doing  this  ever  since  1842.  At  that  time  it  was  the 
wonder  of  the  year;  but  by  1890  the  city  needed  so 
much  more  water  that  another  aqueduct  had  already 
been  built  and  was  ready  for  use. 

New  York  has  built  reservoir  after  reservoir  to  hold 
the  rain  that  falls  anywhere  in  that  region;  and  draws 
from  these  in  dry  weather.  In  1905  another  huge  Croton 
dam  was  ready  to  store  up  more  water  than  New  York 
had  ever  before  collected.  Near  the  end  of  its  construc- 
tion, the  men  worked  hard  and  fast  and  over  time.  The 
reason  was  that  every  day  the  city  was  using  fifty  million 
gallons  more  water  than  could  be  obtained  during  a 
dry  season.  This  meant  that  if  there  had  been  several 
months  without  rain  before  the  dam  was  ready  to  use, 
New  York  would  have  suffered  from  that  awful  thing, 
a  water  famine. 


WATER  SUPPLY  AND  WATER  WASTE  91 

This  almost  happened  in  1900;  for  during  that  year 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty-five  days  more  water  was 
used  than  fell  in  rain.  In  fact,  there  was  finally  only 
enough  left  in  the  reservoirs  to  supply  the  city  five  days 
longer.  If  a  great  fire  had  broken  out  just  then,  I  suppose 


CROTON  DAM  BEFORE  IT  WAS  FINISHED 
Here  thirty  billion  gallons  of  water  are  kept  in  storage  for  New  Yorkers 

the  city  would  hardly  have  dared  to  spare  enough  water 
to  put  it  out. 

Fortunately,  however,  rain  came  instead  of  fire;  and 
it  poured  so  steadily  for  twenty-four  hours  that  every 
reservoir  and  bed  was  full  and  running  over.  Of  course 
this  narrow  escape  showed  the  city  that  it  must  have 


92  TOWN  AND  CITY 

more  water  as  soon  as  possible;  and  that  explains  the 
rush  the  builders  were  in  as  they  were  finishing  the 
new  dam. 

It  was  thirteen  years  building;  and  it  is  so  much  longer 
and  broader  and  higher  than  the  old  dam  that  the  water 
it  holds  back  has  flooded  out  of  sight  that  other  one 
three  miles  farther  up  the  valley.  All  that  a  visitor  sees 
now  is  the  wide,  beautiful,  artificial  lake  that  stretches 
back  into  the  narrow  valleys.  It  stores  up  water  enough 
to  supply  New  York  City  for  a  dry  season  of  one  hun- 
dred days. 

The  new  aqueduct  that  carries  this  water  to  the  city 
is  fourteen  feet  high. 

Read  the  following  figures,  but  do  not  try  to  remember 
them.  In  1904  Greater  New  York  used  three  hundred 
and  seventy-five  million  gallons  of  water  each  day.  Those 
who  know  best  say  that  even  now  the  city  ought  to  have 
enough  to  allow  at  least  five  hundred  million  gallons  to 
be  used  every  twenty-four  hours.  Indeed,  that  is  what 
is  now  being  planned. 

Already  engineers,  chemists,  and  bacteriologists  have 
been  sent  into  all  parts  of  the  state  to  examine  the  water 
and  its  availability.  They  have  visited  the  Hudson 
River  to  its  smallest  branches ;  they  have  studied  all  the 
streams  of  the  Adirondack  and  Catskill  mountains. 

In  fact,  they  have  examined  every  stream,  mountain,  and 
valley  in  the  state ;  and  the  report  of  the  work  is  printed 


WATER  SUPPLY  AND  WATER  WASTE  93 

in  a  book  of  nine  hundred  and  eighty  pages,  with  maps  to 
illustrate  it  from  beginning  to  end.  This  tells  just  where 
the  best  water  can  be  found ;  how  many  dams  must  be 
built  in  this  place  or  that  to  make  the  lake  that  would  be 
needed  as  a  reservoir;  how  many  people  and  villages 
would  have  to  be  bought  out  and  moved  to  make 
room  for  such  a  lake ;  how  long  and  how  large  the  aque- 
ducts would  have  to  be  to  carry  the  water  to  the  city; 
and  in  every  case  they  tell,  as  nearly  as  they  can,  what 
the  whole  will  cost.  All  that  the  city  has  to  do,  then, 
is  to  decide  where  to  go  for  additional  water,  choose 
engineers  and  workmen,  set  them  to  work,  and  pay 
the  bills. 

But  how  does  New  York,  or  any  other  city,  know  how 
much  water  will  be  used  each  year  ?  She  knows  from 
her  own  experience  and  from  the  experience  of  other 
cities.  After  all,  however,  there  is  a  great  difference  in 
the  quantity  of  water  which  different  cities  use  and 
waste. 

Massachusetts  has  learned  this  from  the  reports  of  the 
Metropolitan  Water  District.  There  are  eighteen  towns 
and  cities  in  the  district,  and  the  water  for  each  goes 
through  meters  and  is  measured  on  its  way  to  town.  The 
last  column  of  the  table  given  on  the  next  page  shows  that 
there  is  no  regular  rule  about  the  quantity  taken  by  each 
town ;  and.  that  they  allowed  all  the  way  from  forty-four 
to  one  hundred  and  thirty  gallons  a  day  for  each  person. 


94  TOWN  AND  CITY 

DAILY  AVERAGE  (TWENTY-FOUR  HOURS)  OF  CONSUMPTION  FROM  THE 
METROPOLITAN  WORKS,  JUNE  28,  1903,  TO  JANUARY  2,  1904. 

City  or  Town  Population 

Arlington     ....  9,845 84 

Belmont       ....  4,875 47 

Boston 602,175 130 

Chelsea        ....  36,125 94 

Everett 28,450 81 

Lexington    ....  3,600 68 

Maiden       '.     .     .     .  37,315 47 

Medford      ....  21,035 7& 

Melrose        ....  14,015 100 

Milton 7,475 44 

Nahant        .     .     .     .  2,555 62 

Quincy 27,135 89 

Revere 13*165 60 

Somerville        .     .     .  68,310 82 

Stoneham     ....  6,400 73 

Swampscott      .     .     .  6,380 83 

Watertown        .     .     .  10,950 49 

Winthrop     ....  7,485 89 

Now  those  who  were  studying  the  subject  in  1903 
knew  that  even  extravagant  cities  do  not  need  to  allow 
more  than  sixty  gallons  a  day  for  each  citizen.  They 
also  knew  that  the  Metropolitan  Water  Works  was 
supplying  water  at  the  rate  of  one  hundred  and  twenty 
gallons  a  day  for  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the 
district.  The  question  was  where  it  all  went;  and  on 
that  hinged  the  next  question,  —  how  to  save  it. 


WATER  SUPPLY  AND  WATER  WASTE  95 

To  find  out,  they  kept  two  separate  records:  one 
showed  how  much  water  was  used  during  the  whole 
twenty-four  hours;  the  other  showed  how  much  was 
used  between  one  and  four  o'clock  every  morning.  They 
knew  that  most  people  are  asleep  at  that  time,  and  that 
the  water  that  was  measured  then  was  probably  leaking 
and  wasting.  The  tests  were  kept  up  for  six  months, 
and  by  the  end  of  that  time  it  was  very  plain  that 
quantities  of  water  were  streaming  away  every  night 
while  the  town  was  asleep.  It  was  wasting  so  quietly  out 
of  sight  that  no  one  either  heard  or  saw  it. 

But  to  be  more  exact  about  it,  the  men  now  chose  the 
town  of  Milton  for  special  investigation.  This  town  has 
meters  in  every  house,  so  that  the  committee  knew  not 
only  how  much  water  came  to  town,  but  exactly  how 
much  was  used  in  the  private  houses  and  public  houses, 
for  street  sprinkling  and  by  the  fire  department.  By 
comparing  what  was  actually  used  with  what  went  to 
town,  they  soon  saw  that  there  was  an  enormous  waste. 
Indeed,  it  ended  by  their  deciding  that  the  huge  street 
water  pipes  were  leaking  at  the  rate  of  three  thousand 
gallons  a  day  for  every  mile  of  street  in  Milton.  Then 
they  found  the  leaks,  mended  them  at  once,  and  saved 
quantities  of  water. 

The  water  board  of  a  town  is  supposed  to  keep  the 
street  pipes  mended ;  but  you  and  I,  our  fathers  and 
our  mothers  are  to  blame  if  water  goes  to  waste  in  our 


96  TOWN   AND  CITY 

homes;  for  there  are  but  two  ways  for  it  to  escape,  and 
we  can  discover  them  both : 

1.  Through  broken  pipes  and  fixtures  that 
ought  to  be  mended. 

2.  Through  open  fixtures  that  ought  to  be 
shut. 

Although  we  may  not  always  see  the  water  leaking, 
we  may  often  hear  it  wasting  through  a  hidden  valve 
that  leaks  in  the  bath  room.  The  sound  is  a  warning, 
and  the  valve  should  be  mended. 

It  is  a  wonder  how  much  can  be  wasted  through  a 
very  small  hole.  A  leak  in  a  city  pipe  so  small  that  a 
pin  can  stop  it  will  let  out  water  enough  in  twenty-four 
hours  to  give  a  family  of  five  people  a  day's  supply ;  and 
a  hole  that  can  be  stopped  by  a  lead  pencil  will  waste 
enough  in  a  day  to  give  three  hundred  and  sixty  people 
all  they  need  for  twenty-four  hours. 

One  of  the  surprising  things  that  those  Massachusetts 
water  records  show  is  that  cities  use  more  water  in  the 
coldest  winter  than  in  the  hottest  summer.  The  reason 
is  that  many  people  in  winter  keep  a  tiny  stream  of 
water  running  from  their  fixtures  to  keep  the  pipes  from 
freezing.  Thousands  of  these  streams  all  over  the  city 
are  enough  to  supply  quite  a  river. 

In  January,  1904,  there  were  two  exceedingly  cold  days ; 
and  on  each  of  those  days  the  cities  of  the  water  district 
used  sixty  million  more  gallons  of  water  than  on  any 


WATER  SUPPLY  AND  WATER  WASTE  97 

day  in  August  of  the  same  year.  Notice  this  fact,  how- 
ever; cities  that  used  the  most  water  had  no  meters, 
while  those  that  used  the  least  had  meters. 

Maiden  and  Chelsea  have  about  the  same  population ; 
but  one  has  meters,  the  other  has  not.  See  the  records 
side  by  side : 

Gallons  per  Capita  Gallons  per  Capita 

August  4,  1904  Jan.  5,  1905 

Maiden  (meter)  41  57 

Chelsea  (no  meter)  88  211 

In  the  list  of  eighteen  cities  for  1903  there  are  two 
interesting  groups.  The  population  of  each  is  about  sixty 
thousand,  and  each  really  needs  about  as  much  water  as 
the  other ;  yet  here  they  stand  with  their  different  records. 
In  each  group  the  figures  show  the  average  number  of 
gallons  for  each  person  each  day : 

First  Group  Second  Group 

Belmont      ......  47  Chelsea 94 

Maiden       ......  47  Medford 78 

Milton         44  Melrose 100 

Watertown 47  Winthrop 99 

The  first  group  uses  meters,  the  second  does  not; 
and  the  lesson  from  those  two  rows  of  figures  is  that 
when  water  is  measured  and  paid  for  by  measure  less  is 
wasted.  This  is  so  true  that  a  city  always  saves  money 
by  putting  meters  into  its  houses. 

After  that  the  occupants  keep  the  fixtures  shut ;  they 
mend  leaking  pipes ;  they  compel  landlords  to  protect 


98  TOWN  AND  CITY 

pipes  so  well  that  they  will  not  need  to  keep  the  water 
running  to  prevent  freezing  in  winter.  They  do  all  this 
to  save  their  pocketbooks ;  for  no  one  cares  to  pay  for 
what  he  does  not  use.  Any  broken  pipe  or  open  faucet 
that  lets  out  water  when  it  is  not  needed  wastes  it.  Yet 
no  water  is  wasted  that  is  used  for  cooking,  for  drinking, 
or  for  keeping  people  and  houses  clean.  In  these  ways 
we  need  to  be  generous  with  the  water  we  use. 

When  we  say  that  a  city  supplies  water  at  the  rate  of 
so  much  per  capita,  we  mean  that  each  person's  share  is 
that  amount.  This  includes  all  that  is  used  in  the  city 
in  every  possible  way  and  all  that  is  wasted.  In  New 
York  City  the  daily  per  capita  rate  is  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  gallons,  which  means  that  the  waste  is  enor- 
mous. If  meters  were  used,  millions  of  gallons  would  be 
saved  every  day ;  and  such  a  saving  as  that  would  make 
it  impossible  for  New  York  City  to  be  threatened  by  a 
water  famine  for  many  years  to  come. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

DRINKING  WATER 


Two  thousand  years  ago  the  Romans  seemed  to  know 
that  pure  drinking  water  is  more  necessary  for  the 
health  of  a  city  than  large  houses,  good  laws,  or  clean 
streets.  They  learned  this  from  experience,  for  at  that 


THE  CLAUDIAN  AQUEDUCT  BUILT  OVER  1800  YEARS  AGO 
It  carried  pure  water  to  Rome  from  the  Latin  hills 

time  no  one  had  ever  dreamed  of  such  things  as  disease 
microbes. 

The  Romans  simply  noticed  that  when  they  were 
crowded  together  in  cities,  and  when  they  drank  water 
from  wells  or  brooks  near  which  people  lived,  they  were 

99 


IOO 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


apt  to  suffer  from  certain  diseases.  They  were  so  sure 
of  this  that,  although  the  river  Tiber  ran  through  the 
very  heart  of  Rome,  they  did  not  use  it  for  drinking. 
Instead,  they  built  enormous  aqueducts  that  rested  on 
arches  and  stretched  across  the  country  for  scores  of 
miles,  carrying  delicious  mountain  water  to  the  city. 


A  CHINESE  RIVER  FOR  DRINKING  WATER 

China  manages  in  a  different  way.  She  takes  what- 
ever water  is  nearest  at  hand  and  uses  it. 

I  am  thinking  just  now  of  Tientsin  on  the  Peiho 
River.  The  city  is  large  and  crowded  with  people.  The 
streets  are  narrow  and  dirty,  but  they  are  washed  some- 
times when  waste  water  and  even  sewage  runs  through 
them  and  sweeps  the  refuse  into  the  river.  On  this 


DRINKING  WATER  IOI 

same  river  thousands  of  Chinese  junks  lie  anchored,  or 
move  from  place  to  place  with  the  families  that  live  in 
them  from  one  year's  end  to  another;  and  everything 
that  is  disagreeable  from  all  these  boats  and  all  these 
people  is  tossed  overboard  into  the  river. 

Worse  than  that,  on  the  banks  of  the  Peiho,  for  hun- 
dreds of  miles  through  the  flat  country,  there  are  scores 
of  other  cities  and  villages,  and  each  one  throws  all  its 
refuse  into  the  river  to  be  carried  to  the  sea.  The  water 
is  yellow-brown  at  last,  and  wretched  stuff  for  drinking. 
Yet  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people  in  Tientsin,  and  in 
all  the  other  crowded  places  on  that  crowded  river  bank, 
drink  it  every  day  of  their  lives. 

Rome  would  not  have  dared  to  touch  it.  Still  China 
is  an  old  country  too,  and  she  has  learned  from  experience 
just  as  Rome  did,  only  she  has  learned  two  lessons 
instead  of  one : 

1.  Impure    water   is   dangerous,  —  which 
the  Romans  knew. 

2.  Any  human  being  can  make  the  most 
impure  water  safe  for   drinking  by  boiling 
it  for  a  few  minutes. 

They  have  learned  these  lessons  so  well  in  China 
that  in  every  part  of  the  country  the  people  boil  the 
water  before  they  drink  it.  The  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
wise  and  the  foolish,  all  treat  it  in  the  same  way.  Most 
of  them  have  a  few  tea  leaves  in  the  water,  and  they  call 


102  TOWN  AND  CITY 

their  drink  tea;  but  it  often  seems  as  if  the  tea  were 
only  an  excuse  for  the  boiling.  After  all,  however,  I 
doubt  very  much  whether  many  of  the  people  know  why 
boiling  makes  it  safe. 

We  ourselves  learned  in  Good  Health  that  boiling 
kills  microbes,  and  that  a  dead  microbe  is  no  more  dan- 
gerous than  a  dead  wolf.  We  also  know  that  it  is  quite 
as  important  to  kill  disease  microbes  that  may  be  in  our 
drinking  water  as  to  kill  wild  animals  that  may  be  ready 
to  seize  us. 

Cities  in  America  and  England  have  been  slow  in 
learning  either  the  Roman  or  the  Chinese  lessons,  as  the 
following  London  record  of  epidemics  shows : 

Epidemic  of  Duration  Deaths  from  Cholera 

1847  ....  23  weeks  ....  13,565 
1854  ....  23  "  ....  10,684 
1865  ....  23  «  ....  5,548 

The  special  point  to  notice  about  these  epidemics  is 
that  they  all  came  from  impure  drinking  water.  Evi- 
dently the  Englishman  was  drinking  what  the  Chinese 
would  have  boiled  and  what  the  Romans  would  not 
have  touched.  In  1854,  when  people  began  to  die  by 
hundreds  and  by  thousands,  the  doctors  hunted  for 
the  reason  and  found  that  the  center  of  the  whole  trouble 
seemed  to  be  near  Broad  Street  well.  They  noticed  that 
those  who  used  that  water  were  far  more  apt  to  die  of 
cholera  than  anybody  else. 


DRINKING  WATER  103 

Yet  scores  of  men  liked  the  water  so  much  better  than 
any  other  that  they  came  from  blocks  around  to  drink 
it.  They  even  brought  pails  and  pitchers  to  carry  it 
away  in,  for  they  said  it  was  cool  and  clear  and  had  a 
delicious  taste ;  but  at  last  so  many  were  dying  that  the 
city  officers  warned  the  people  not  to  use  it.  In  spite  of 
that  fact,  however,  many  kept  up  the  practice  until  some 
one  was  sensible  enough  to  take  off  the  handle  of  the 
pump,  which,  of  course,  saved  even  the  weak  and  foolish 
from  being  tempted. 

Nobody  knew  why  the  water  did  such  harm  until  one 
persistent  man  examined  the  sides  of  the  well,  and 
behold !  there  was  the  trouble.  The  bricks  were  so 
loose  and  the  mortar  between  the  stones  was  so  useless 
that  anything  liquid  could  leak  in.  Later  he  found  an 
old  cesspool  in  a  house  near  by,  —  indeed  near  enough 
to  explain  everything.  Some  one  with  cholera  had 
evidently  been  in  that  house,  and  cholera  germs  had 
not  only  reached  the  cesspool  but  by  leaking  through 
had  also  reached  the  well  and  loaded  the  drinking  water 
with  disease  microbes. 

In  the  London  epidemic  of  1866  almost  four  thousand 
of  those  who  died  belonged  to  the  same  East  District. 
When  it  appeared  that  all  the  water  for  this  district 
came  from  the  same  source,  the  case  looked  suspicious 
and  the  city  officers  ordered  a  warning  notice  to  be  put 
up.  Read  it  on  the  next  page. 


104  TOWN  AND  CITY 

CHOLERA  NOTICE 

The  inhabitants  of  the  district  in  which  Cholera  is  prevailing  are 
earnestly  advised  not  to  drink  any  water  which  has  not  previously 
been  boiled. 

After  that  those  who  followed  the  warning  were  safe. 
This  example  simply  shows  the  serious  side  of  the  city- 
water  trouble.  People  drink  what  they  find,  whether 
they  draw  it  from  well  or  faucet,  for  most  of  them 
know  almost  nothing  about  the  difference  between  pure 
and  impure  water ;  and,  in  any  case,  the  whole  responsi- 
bility for  the  water  supply  seems  to  rest  on  the  city 
government. 

Still  all  citizens  should  learn  a  few  facts  by  heart  and 
practice  accordingly.  They  should  bear  in  mind  the 
circle  of  the  water  history, — how  it  evaporates  from 
ocean,  lake,  and  river ;  and  how  it  forms  clouds,  turns  to 
rain,  and  falls  to  earth  again.  Then,  too,  they  should  know 
that  although  microbes  are  too  small  to  be  seen,  they 
never  evaporate  with  the  water. 

You  may  choose  the  brownest  pool  of  water  in  the 
dustiest  street  in  New  York,  but  the  vapor  that  the  sun 
draws  from  that  water  is  as  pure  and  sweet  as  it  is  from 
any  mountain  spring.  Disease  microbes  may  be  thick 
enough  in  the  pool  to  give  cholera  or  typhoid  fever  to 
one  hundred  men,  but  after  the  water  has  evaporated 
and  after  the  vapor  has  turned  to  water  again  you  and 


DRINKING  WATER 


IO5 


I  may  drink  that  water  without  the  slightest  danger 
from  any  sort  of  disease  microbes  that  may  have  been 
in  the  pool.  That  is  why  rain  water,  direct  from  the 
sky  through  clean  air  and  caught  in  clean  pails,  is 
always  safe. 

We  must  not  forget,  however,  that  rain  water  changes 
according  to  what  comes  in  contact  with  it.  First  is 
the  air.  If  this  is  full  of  dust  and  smoke,  the  earliest 
raindrops  or  snowflakes  are  not  the  clean  ones,  for  they 
have  washed  the  air  and  hold  the  dust  themselves;  but 
after  the  first  sprinkle  the  water  that  follows  is  per- 
fectly pure. 

Nevertheless,  if  this  pure  water  is  caught  in  unclean 
reservoirs  or  polluted  streams,  it  will  be  changed  ;  or,  still 
more  serious,  if  microbes  of  typhoid  fever,  Asiatic  cholera, 
or  other  diseases  that  attack  the  intestines  can  by  any 
chance  reach  that  water,  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
who  drinks  it  will  be  in  danger. 

It  is  well  to  know  that  in  the  United  States  the  one 
water  disease  that  we  need  to  fear  is  typhoid  fever, 
and  that  the  only  possible  way  for  typhoid  microbes 
to  get  into  the  water  is  from  what  passes  out  of  the 
bodies  of  those  who  have  the  disease.  For  this  reason 
the  history  of  our  drinking  water  after  it  reaches  the 
ground  may  be  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  us. 

Though  all  water  comes  down  in  rain  and  either  stays 
in  lakes  and  rivers  or  soaks  deep  into  the  ground  to 


106  TOWN  AND  CITY 

supply  wells  and  springs,  still  people  speak  of  three 
kinds : 

1.  Rain  water,  or  water  caught  and  stored 
in  reservoirs. 

2.  Surface  water,  or  water  in  lakes,  ponds, 
and  rivers. 

3.  Ground  water,  or  water  from  wells  and 
springs. 

When  no  bacteriologist  examines  our  drinking  water 
we  have  to  trust  to  its  history ;  that  is,  we  have  to  know 
whether  or  not  typhoid  microbes  have  had  any  chance 
to  find  their  way  into  it. 

Rain  water  caught  in  well-made  reservoirs  is  perfectly 
safe;  ground  water  away  from  human  dwellings  is  safe 
too,  but  surface  water  has  to  be  looked  after  pretty 
carefully. 

We  must  also  remember  that  as  freezing  does  not  kill 
microbes,  ice  that  has  no  respectable  history  behind  it  is 
as  unsafe  as  the  same  sort  of  water  would  be ;  it  should 
not  be  put  into  what  we  eat  or  drink.  As  a  rule,  on  this 
account  it  is  much  safer  to  cool  things  by  having  ice 
near  rather  than  in  them.  It  is  different,  however,  with 
manufactured  ice,  for  this  is  generally  made  from  dis- 
tilled water.  And  when  it  has  so  creditable  a  history  as 
that  we  may  safely  put  it  into  what  we  eat  and  what  we 
drink. 


CHAPTER   XIV 
GETTING  WATER  TO  TOWN 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  cities  of  Europe  and  America  did 
not  learn  the  Roman  and  the  Chinese  lesson  long  ago. 
Instead  they  have  had  some  bitter  experiences,  one  of 
which  came  to  Plymouth,  Pennsylvania,  in  1885.  The 
town  had  eight  thousand  inhabitants.  Some  of  them 
took  their  drinking  water  from  wells  and  springs,  others 
used  water  from  the  Susquehanna  River,  while  still 
others  drew  it  from  a  beautiful  stream  that  came  down 
from  the  mountains  and  was  stored  in  reservoirs  above 
them.  This  water  was  so  pure  that  those  who  used  it 
felt  perfectly  safe  until  April,  1885.  Then  came  typhoid 
fever,  —  one  case  at  first,  then  five,  fifteen,  twenty,  until 
within  a  few  days  the  doctors  had  more  than  they 
could  do.  Fifty  people  were  ill  in  one  day ;  one  hundred 
more  the  next  day,  and  the  numbers  increased  so  fast 
that  soon  eleven  hundred  men,  women,  and  children  had 
the  same  disease,  and  one  hundred  and  fourteen  of  them 
died  of  it. 

In  the  meantime  everybody  was  hunting  for  the  cause. 
Some  doctor  then  discovered  that  the  only  persons 

who  had  the  fever  were  those  who  used  water  from  the 

107 


io8 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


4th  Reservoir 

House  from  which  the 
'  ztion  cam& 


mountain  stream,  and  men  were  sent  at  once  to  examine 
the  banks  and  the  reservoirs. 

The  road  they  took  led  them  past  the  reservoirs  one 
by  one  until  they  had  nearly  reached  the  last  of  the  four ; 
and  here,  beside  the  bank,  was  the  house  that  caused 

all  the  trouble.  Only  two 
houses  were  anywhere 
near  the  stream,  yet  all  the 
mischief  came  from  one  of 
them. 

It  seems  that  through 
the  winter  a  man  had 
been  ill  there  with  typhoid 
fever,  and  that  while  he 
was  ill  his  nurse  had  used 
the  river  bank  as  the 
emptying  place  for  every- 
thing that  passed  from  his 
body.  The  ground  was 
frozen  at  the  time,  but  we 
learned  in  Good  Health 
that  cold  does  not  kill 
microbes.  On  the  contrary,  when  spring  came  they 
thawed  out  with  the  snow,  and  trickled  down  the  banks 
and  into  the  stream  with  the  melted  ice ;  from  there  they 
reached  the  reservoirs  and  were  carried  to  the  people 
through  the  water  pipes. 


MAP  OF  PLYMOUTH,  PENNSYLVANIA, 

IN    1885 


GETTING  WATER  TO  TOWN  109 

In  fact,  there  was  no  question  about  the  history  of  that 
water,  and  it  was  easy  to  understand  where  all  the  illness 
came  from.  Every  doctor  knew  that  the  microbes  from 
one  man  had  given  the  disease  to  eleven  hundred  other 
people. 

Besides  the  illness  and  death  in  the  city  there  was 
the  expense  of  it.  It  cost  Plymouth  eight  thousand  dol- 
lars to  maintain  a  hospital  for  the  patients.  In  addi- 
tion there  was  the  loss  of  time  and  wages,  with  so  many 
other  expenses  that  it  really  cost  the  town  over  sixty- 
seven  thousand  dollars  to  have  those  microbes  in  her 
drinking  water,  —  enough  to  have  paid  the  salary  of  a 
man  to  watch  the  banks  for  many  years.  No  wonder  the 
loss  taught  a  great  lesson  to  the  entire  country. 

To  show  why  towns  sometimes  need  to  bring  water 
from  a  distance  and  how  they  do  it,  take  the  case  of 
Oberlin,  Ohio,  with  its  five  thousand  inhabitants. 

Formerly  many  families  in  the  place  used  well  water 
for  drinking,  but  as  typhoid  fever  grew  more  common, 
and  as  houses  were  put  closer  together,  a  chemist  was 
asked  to  look  into  the  matter  and  see  if  the  water  was 
safe.  He  himself  was  surprised  enough  when  he  found 
sewage  in  almost  every  well.  Yet  this  was  perfectly 
natural,  for,  not  knowing  the  danger,  people  often  dug 
the  well  near  the  kitchen  or  the  barn,  with  the  outhouse 
not  far  away.  It  was  convenient  near  by,  and  they 
thought  there  could  certainly  be  no  danger  whatever  so 


HO  TOWN  AND  CITY 

long  as  no  one  was  ill  in  the  house.  But  the  history 
of  Broad  Street  well,  in  London,  shows  what  may  happen 
in  case  illness  does  come.  When,  therefore,  Oberlin 
knew  the  state  of  her  own  wells,  and  when  she  had 
decided  to  bring  her  drinking  water  from  a  safer  place, 
she  chose  three  men  and  told  them  to  do  three  things. 

1.  To  find  water  fit  to  drink. 

2.  To  find  enough  to  supply  the  whole 
town. 

3.  To  plan  to  keep  it  pure  from  the  time 
it  left  its  source  until  it  reached  the  homes 
of  the  people. 

These  men  did  their  work  faithfully.  They  examined 
the  country  for  miles  in  every  direction,  traveled  up  the 
banks  of  every  small  stream,  searched  diligently  for 
sparkling  springs,  and  ended  by  choosing  the  springs  that 
are  the  source  of  the  east  branch  of  the  Vermilion  River. 

At  a  point  six  miles  from  Oberlin,  they  now  bought 
one  hundred  and  fifty  acres  of  land,  put  a  dam  across 
the  narrow  stream,  gathered  all  the  water  Oberlin  needed, 
laid  glazed  pipes  ten  inches  in  diameter,  and  let  the 
water  run  through  them  to  the  town. 

In  the  meantime,  in  Oberlin  itself,  they  .bought  ten  acres 
of  ground,  had  it  scraped  out  for  a  reservoir  sixteen  feet 
deep  and  a  quarter  of  a  mile  around,  planted  grass  seed  on 
the  banks,  let  the  ten-inch  stream  of  Vermilion  water  pour 
into  it,  and  soon  had  fifteen  million  gallons  ready  for  use. 


GETTING  WATER  TO  TOWN  1 1 1 

Last  of  all  came  the  engine  house,  pumps,  standpipe, 
and  filter,  —  so  fine  an  outfit  that  to-day  the  small  town 
of  Oberlin  has  water  as  pure  and  safe  as  that  of  any  city 
in  the  land.  It  is,  in  fact,  as  satisfactory  as  surface  water 
can  be  made. 

In  some  ways  it  is  indeed  much  easier  to  manage 
the  water  supply  in  a  small  town  than  in  a  large  one ; 
and  Cleveland,  thirty  miles  from  Oberlin,  shows  the 


WATER  IN  STORAGE  FOR  THE  CITIZENS  OF  OBERLIN 

difference  very  well.  Although  now  a  large  city  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Erie,  still,  years  ago,  Cleveland  was  a 
mere  village  with  no  question  about  drinking  water,  for 
the  lake  itself  is  eighty  miles  across,  and  neither  steamers 
nor  freight  boats  traveled  on  it  then,  as  they  do  now, 
and  the  villages  on  its  shore  were  few  and  small. 

Naturally,  therefore,  Cleveland  drank  Lake  Erie  water 
fearlessly.  More  than  that,  not  knowing  the  risk,  —  for 
no  one  suspected  danger  of  that  kind  in  those  days,  — 


112 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


sewage  also  was  poured  into  the  lake.  That  explained  all 
that  followed,  for  the  village  soon  grew  to  be  a  town,  and 
the  town  to  be  a  city.  There  were  one  thousand  people 

in  it,  then  one  hundred 
thousand,  two  hun- 
dred thousand,  four 
hundred  thousand.  At 
the  same  time,  each 
year  the  city  used  more 
and  more  drinking 
water  from  Lake  Erie 
and  poured  more  and 
more  sewage  back 
into  it ;  also,  each  year 
there  was  more  typhoid 
fever  everywhere  in 
the  city. 

Finally  those  who 
were  intelligent  about 

WATER  is  PUMPED  FROM  THE  RESERVOIRS  SUCh  matters  began  to 
INTO  THE  STANDPIPE,  THEN  SENT  TO  THE  suspect  that  citv  SCW- 
HOMES  OF  OBERLLN 

age  was  getting  mixed 

with  city  drinking  water,  and  they  promptly  boiled 
all  they  drank;  but  thousands  of  other  citizens  knew 
nothing  about  such  things,  and  the  fever  accordingly 
spread  so  fast  that  soon  hundreds  had  it  and  many 
died. 


GETTING  WATER  TO  TOWN  1 1 3 

By  this  time  everybody  was  frightened.  Some  bought 
water  by  the  bottle  and  by  the  gallon  from  men  who 
brought  it  from  the  country  to  sell;  others  learned  to 
boil  it;  while  people  who  went  to  the  city  from  the 
country  to  shop  dared  not  take  a  drop  of  water  from 
the  time  they  left  home  in  the  morning  until  they 
reached  home  again  at  night. 

The  reason  for  all  this  is  plain  when  we  understand 
the  exact  situation. 

Cleveland  has  two  sets  of  underground  pipes  up  and 
down  all  her  streets.  One  set  takes  water  to  each  house 
from  a  point  in  the  lake  which  used  to  be  about  a  mile 
and  a  quarter  from  the  shore.  The  other  set  gathers  up 
the  sewage  from  the  different  houses  in  the  city  and 
empties  it  into  the  lake  at  different  points  along  the 
shore. 

Now  those  who  understood  the  subject  at  the  time 
said  that  if  there  were  any  chance  to  watch  what  was 
going  on  in  the  lake  between  the  sewage  pipes  and  the 
water  pipes,  everything  would  be  explained.  They  were 
sure  that  the  great  stream  of  water  which  the  pumps  on 
land  were  drawing  up  into  the  water  pipes  also  drew  up 
some  of  the  sewage  from  the  sewer  pipes. 

An  epidemic  of  typhoid  fever  came  in  1903.  Yet  long 
before  that  the  mayor  of  the  city  had  asked  special  stu- 
dents of  such  subjects  to  come  to  Cleveland  and  give 
advice  about  the  water  and  the  sewage  of  the  city. 


114  TOWN  AND  CITY 

These  men  came.  They  examined  the  currents  of 
water  in  the  lake  and  the  direction  of  the  winds,  also 
studying  the  water  itself  through  a  microscope.  They 
then  said  that  the  city  must  make  a  change  at  once; 
that  the  water  intake  must  be  put  ten  miles  from  the 
sewage  outlet;  that  one  must  be  east  of  the  city,  the 
other  west;  and  that  the  water  must  be  taken  from  near 
the  bottom  of  the  lake,  five  miles  from  land. 

Cleveland  now  discussed  the  matter  thoroughly.  All 
intelligent  citizens  knew  that  the  expense  of  the  changes 
would  be  enormous,  but  they  also  knew  that  impure 
water  was  a  fearful  thing  to  drink  and  they  decided 
that  the  best  water  must  be  had  at  any  cost.  Con- 
tracts were  therefore  given,  the  work  moved  on  steadily, 
and  in  1904  the  new  intake  nine  feet  in  diameter  was 
finished. 

Almost  at  once  doctors  noticed  a  change  in  the 
typhoid  situation.  Fewer  cases  were  reported  and  fewer 
died ;  indeed,  after  that,  the  death  rate  from  typhoid  fever 
decreased  so  fast  from  month  to  month  that  within  a 
year  even  timid  citizens  felt  safe  again.  Boiled  water  was 
not  the  rule  any  longer;  spring  water  went  begging  for 
purchasers;  hospitals  were  empty  of  typhoid  patients; 
visitors  from  out  of  town  drank  the  water  without  fear; 
and  everywhere  health  and  good  cheer  crowded  typhoid 
fever  and  fear  out  of  the  houses,  so  much  so  that  city 
health  reports  were  pleasant  reading  again. 


GETTING  WATER  TO  TOWN  1 1 5 

One  small  set  of  figures  comparing  three  months  in 
1904  with  the  same  months  in  1905  shows  what  the 
change  really  was. 

DEATHS  FROM  TYPHOID  BY  THE  MONTH 

February         March  April 

I9°4 -45  50  27 

i9°5 2  5  7 

Cleveland  is  so  progressive,  and  does  so  much  for 
the  health  of  her  citizens  in  every  direction,  that  in  the 
end  she  will  probably  decide  either  to  send  her  drinking 
water  through  large  sand  filters,  or  to  filter  the  sewage 
before  it  goes  into  the  lake.  This  will  be  done  because 
it  is  not  perfectly  certain  that  at  some  time  winds  and 
waves  may  not  drive  the  sewage  in  the  wrong  direction. 

For  very  many  years  Chicago  had  the  same  experi- 
ence as  Cleveland:  that  is,  all  the  sewage  of  the  city 
went  into  Lake  Michigan  and  all  the  city  drinking  water 
came  from  the  same  lake.  Each  year,  also,  there  was 
increasing  typhoid  fever  until  at  last,  in  desperation, 
Chicago  voted  to  spend  forty-three  million  dollars  in 
improving  her  drinking  water. 

By  digging  a  canal  twenty-eight  miles  long,  the  sewage 
of  the  city  was  now  turned  away  from  the  lake,  and, 
mixed  with  a  great  volume  of  lake  water,  it  streamed 
from  one  river  into  another  until  it  entered  the  Missis- 
sippi and  flowed  on  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 


Il6  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Immediately  after  that  there  was  a  change  in  the  city 
death  record.  Instead  of  sixteen  deaths  for  each  thou- 
sand of  the  people  each  year,  the  number  dropped  to 
fourteen  deaths  for  the  same  number  of  people.  This 
meant  the  saving  of  hundreds  of  lives  every  year. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  three  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  away,  the  citizens  of  St.  Louis  were  drinking 
Mississippi  River  water  as  they  had  always  done.  The 
next  chapter  will  give  us  a  notion  as  to  what  they  thought 
of  the  Chicago  scheme  for  getting  rid  of  sewage. 


CHAPTER  XV 
RIVERS,  DRINKING  WATER,  AND  SEWAGE 

When  St.  Louis  realized  that  the  entire  stream  of 
Chicago  sewage  was  being  emptied  into  her  own  water 
supply  there  was  great  indignation  in  the  city.  Not  only 
so,  but  in  1900  a  famous  lawsuit  was  begun  in  behalf  of 
St.  Louis,  called  "  The  Chicago  Drainage  Canal  Case." 
Through  this  lawsuit  the  state  of  Missouri  tried  to 
compel  the  state  of  Illinois  to  prevent  Chicago  from 
sending  sewage  down  the  Missouri  River. 

The  case  was  tried  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  Expert  scientists  were  engaged  on  both 
sides ;  every  city  in  the  land  was  interested,  and,  after 
about  six  years  of  investigation  and  discussion,  the  court 
gave  its  decision  in  favor  of  Chicago. 

The  defense  had  two  strong  arguments :  first,  that 
water  from  the  drainage  canal  was  not  so  impure  as  the 
Missouri  River  into  which  it  flowed;  second,  that  it 
took  from  ten  to  twenty  days  for  typhoid  microbes  from 
Chicago  to  reach  St.  Louis,  and  that  they  were  probably 
dead  by  the  time  they  reached  the  place.  Whether  or 
not  all  were  dead  could  not  be  proved,  but  every  scien- 
tist granted  that  the  distance  greatly  reduced  the  danger. 

117 


TOWN  AND   CITY 


In  multitudes  of  cases,  however,  cities  on  the  same  river 
are  but  a  few  miles  apart,  and  then  it  is  that  the  water 
and  the  sewage  problems  become  very  serious.  A  remark- 
able example  of  this  used  to  be  that  of  the  Merrimac 

,       ,    River  in   Massachusetts. 

Turn  to  a  map  of  New 
England  and  you  will 
see  how  this  river  runs 
through  New  Hampshire 
and  Massachusetts  and 
empties  into  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  You  will  also  no- 
tice that,  besides  all  sorts 
of  smaller  towns,  there  are 
seven  good-sized  cities  on 
its  banks, —  Concord,  Man- 
chester, Nashua,  Lowell, 
Lawrence,  Haverhill,  and 
Newburyport. 
The  history  of  the  drinking  water  in  these  cities  is 
especially  interesting  because  it  shows  how  it  has  been 
connected  with  typhoid  fever  over  and  over  again. 

Each  city  started  with  a  few  families.  These  increased 
until  each  group  became  a  village.  Each  village  then 
grew  until  it  was  a  city,  and  most  of  the  families  in  most 
of  the  cities  always  took  their  drinking  water  from  the 
river  and  poured  their  sewage  back  into  it.  At  first 


A  RlVER  THAT  CARRIED  DISEASE 
FROM  CITY  TO  CITY 


RIVERS,  DRINKING  WATER,  AND  SEWAGE         119 

pails  and  buckets  were  used  to  dip  up  the  water  and 
carry  it  to  the  houses,  but  in  time  the  cities  put  in 
two  sets  of  pipes,  —  one  for  water,  the  other  for  sewage. 

This  arrangement  continued  unchanged  for  years, 
though  finally  some  of  the  cities  grew  suspicious  and 
took  their  drinking  water  from  elsewhere.  But  there 
was  no  change  about  the  sewage  ;  by  day  and  by  night 
all  the  streams  that  emptied  into  the  Merrimac  River, 
and  all  the  cities  that  stood  on  its  banks,  poured  their 
sewage  into  it. 

Of  course  the  farther  downstream  a  city  stood  the 
more  sewage  it  received  from  other  places.  In  fact,  the 
only  houses  that  were  perfectly  safe  in  that  whole  region 
were  those  that  were  so  near  the  sources  of  the  river 
itself,  or  of  its  little  branches,  that  no  other  people 
lived  above  them. 

Cleveland  spoiled  her  own  drinking  water  with  her 
own  sewage,  but  on  the  Merrimac  River  each  city  was 
spoiling  the  water  for  every  family  below  it. 

This  was  done  innocently,  of  course,  for  long  ago,  when 
people  knew  nothing  about  microbes,  they  judged  water 
by  its  color,  its  taste,  and  its  odor.  If  it  had  no  odor, 
looked  pure,  and  tasted  sweet,  it  was  considered  perfectly 
safe  for  drinking. 

Even  later  than  that,  when  scientists  knew  about 
microbes,  they  believed  that  no  matter  how  much  sewage 
a  city  poured  into  a  river,  if  the  river  itself  was  of  good 


120  TOWN  AND  CITY 

size,  and  if  the  nearest  city  downstream  was  several  miles 
away,  the  water  would  be  free  from  disease  by  the  time 
it  reached  there.  Somehow  they  thought  that  moving 
water  purified  itself,  and  they  knew  that  the  size  of  a 
river  always  made  a  difference. 

Now  it  is  indeed  true  that  the  larger  the  river,  and  the 
farther  off  the  next  city,  the  safer  the  people  are  when 
they  use  the  water.  This  is  partly  because  the  more 
water  sewage  mixes  with  the  more  dilute  it  will  be,  and 
the  farther  apart  the  microbes  will  be  scattered.  That, 
in  turn,  means  that  the  more  dilute  the  sewage  the  less 
danger  there  is  to  those  who  drink  it. 

Then,  too,  some  microbes  do  certainly  die  on  the  way 
downstream,  so  that  distance  is  a  great  help;  but  when 
we  think  of  that  one  man  ill  with  typhoid  fever  above 
Plymouth,  and  of  all  the  people  who  died,  we  realize 
that  even  very  dilute  typhoid  sewage  is  perilous  stuff  to 
drink. 

In  former  times,  however,  the  Merrimac  River  people 
were  so  sure  that  their  river  had  purified  itself  by  mov- 
ing, that  even  while  they  were  dying  of  the  fever  they 
kept  on  drinking  unboiled  river  water.  At  least  this 
was  the  case  with  Lowell  and  Lawrence. 

To  make  the  matter  more  tragic,  the  list  of  deaths 
for  each  year  for  each  separate  city  shows  that  during 
every  year  from  1889  to  1893  Lowell  had  more  typhoid 
deaths  than  Concord,  Manchester,  or  Nashua,  and  that 


RIVERS,  DRINKING  WATER,  AND  SEWAGE         12 1 

Lawrence  had  a  much  longer  death  list  than  Lowell. 
Look  at  the  map  again  and  you  will  find  the  explanation 
of  both  facts.  Lowell  is  farther  downstream  than  Con- 
cord, Manchester,  and  Nashua,  while  Lawrence  stands 
below  Lowell. 

Indeed,  the  two  places  are  only  nine  miles  apart,  and 
both  receive  drinking  water  mixed  with  sewage  from 
all  the  other  cities,  but  Lawrence  gets  an  extra  quantity 
because  all  the  sewage  from  Lowell,  with  a  population 
of  eighty-five  thousand,  flows  on  in  her  direction. 

In  1893  Newburyport  had  a  sad  experience.  This 
city  is  below  Lawrence,  and,  as  a  rule,  brings  water 
from  large,  pure  springs  at  a  distance  from  the  river. 
But  in  January  of  that  year  about  thirty  people  in 
different  parts  of  the  city  had  typhoid  fever  at  about 
the  same  time.  This  was  astonishing,  and  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  investigation.  Then  it  appeared  that  the 
springs  had  not  been  giving  enough  water  to  supply  the 
entire  city,  and,  to  piece  out,  some  one  had  turned 
Merrimac  River  water  into  the  pipes.  This  had  been 
going  on  for  some  time,  and  no  harm  came  of  it  until 
typhoid  fever  broke  out  in  Lawrence.  Shortly  after  the 
same  trouble  reached  Newburyport,  and  no  one  doubted 
that  the  microbes  had  traveled  down  by  water  from 
Lawrence. 

An  example  like  this  simply  shows  how  disease  in  one 
city  may  destroy  life  in  another. 


122  TOWN  AND  CITY 

For  several  years  Lawrence  had  over  three  times  as 
many  deaths  from  typhoid  fever,  for  the  size  of  the  city, 
as  Cambridge,  Worcester,  or  Lynn.  When  we  notice 
that  the  cities  which  escaped  did  not  use  Merrimac 
River  water,  we  understand  the  case  at  once. 

The  truth  is  that,  even  in  1890,  intelligent  men  and 
women  were  ignorant  or  careless  about  the  history  of 
their  drinking  water.  As  for  typhoid  fever  in  Lawrence, 
so  many  died  every  year  of  that  disease  that  people  fell 
into  the  habit  of  thinking  that  it  belonged  to  the  place, 
that  it  came  in  the  air,  or  in  some  other  mysterious 
way ;  they  were  slow  in  putting  the  responsibility  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  microbes  from  other  cities. 

Finally,  however,  those  who  watched  noticed  that  there 
was  something  remarkable  in  the  way  the  fever  came. 
They  realized  that  whenever  Lowell  had  it  Lawrence 
followed  with  a  worse  attack,  and  that  when  Lowell  had 
no  fever  Lawrence  was  apt  to  have  none. 

Mr.  H.  F.  Mills,  a  member  of  the  State  Board  of 
Health,  had  already  called  attention  to  the  matter,  and 
he  said  that  the  cause  was  probably  impure  water.  In 
1890  the  epidemic  was  so  serious  in  Lowell  that  Pro- 
fessor William  T.  Sedgwick,  who  was  at  that  time  the 
biologist  of  the  State  Board  of  Health,  was  asked  to 
study  the  case  thoroughly;  while  the  water  board  of 
Lowell  also  asked  him  to  tell  them  how  to  avoid  such 
epidemics  in  the  future. 


RIVERS,  DRINKING  WATER,  AND  SEWAGE          123 

Professor  Sedgwick  and  his  assistants  went  to  work  at 
once.  The  first  thing  they  did  was  to  find  out  whether 
any  one  had  had  typhoid  fever  in  that  region  before  the 
real  epidemic  began.  It  then  appeared  that  on  the  banks 
of  a  small  stream  called  Stony  Brook  there  had  been 
several  cases  of  the  fever.  The  sewage  from  these  people 
had  gone  into  the  brook,  the  brook  had  emptied  into  the 
Merrimac  River,  and  two  miles  below  were  the  intake 
water  pipes  for  Lowell.  Surely  the  road  the  microbes 
had  traveled  was  as  plain  as  in  the  Plymouth  case; 
through  the  brook  and  the  river  they  reached  the  pipes, 
and  from  the  pipes  the  people  drank  them. 

That  was  the  first  chapter  of  the  epidemic.  The 
second  followed  about  two  weeks  later,  when  the  same 
disease  appeared  in  Lawrence.  As  we  understand  the 
matter  in  these  days,  we  see  that  the  epidemic  was 
bound  to  reach  Lawrence,  because  by  this  time  all  the 
sewage  from  the  hundreds  of  people  who  were  ill  in 
Lowell  was  hurrying  down  those  nine  miles  by  river 
to  Lawrence,  and  every  day  thousands  of  people  were 
innocently  drinking  it  with  the  water. 

The  more  the  state  board  of  health  studied  the  subject 
the  more  interested  they  became.  By  this  time  they  had 
given  up  the  notion  that  running  water  purifies  itself; 
they  were  also  sure  that  the  danger  was  from  microbes  in 
the  sewage,  not  from  the  sewage  itself,  and  that  those 
microbes  were  not  killed  by  traveling  downstream. 


124 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


V. 


They  saw  that  Lowell  and  Lawrence  always  had 
sewage  in  their  drinking  water,  but  that  they  only  had 
typhoid  fever  when  there  was  typhoid  fever  in  the  cities 
above  them.  They  also  saw  that  there  was  no  possible 
way  to  tell  by  the  color  or  the' taste  or  the  general  looks 
of  any  water  whether  there  were  disease  microbes  in  it 

or  not,  and  they  promptly 
decided  that  the  only  way 
to  be  safe  was  to  be  rid 
of  every  possible  microbe 
and  drink  only  the  purest 
water. 

Now  this  was  more 
easily  said  than  done,  for 
the  question  was  how  to 
get  the  purest  water  for 
every  city.  There  was 

To  study  tt&flagella  on  them  see  Good       Cleveland,    for    example, 
Health,  page  30  who   gaye    hersdf  typhoid 

fever  by  carrying  her  own  microbes  round  and  round 
in  a  circle  through  her  drinking  water  and  her  sewage. 
Then  there  was  Lawrence  that  took  typhoid  microbes 
from  other  cities.  Yet  Cleveland  must  keep  on  using 
lake  water,  and  Lawrence  must  take  hers  from  a  river. 
What  they  needed  was  some  way  of  changing  the  char- 
acter of  the  water  in  both  places.  The  question  was 
how  to  do  it. 


TYPHOID  MICROBES 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PURIFICATION  OF  WATER  AND  SEWAGE 

The  State  Board  of  Health  now  advised  Lawrence  to 
put  in  large  out-of-door  filters,  as  London  and  Berlin 
had  done. 

They  said  it  was  the  only  thing  to  do.  Indeed,  they 
knew  from  experiments  which  they  themselves  had  made 
just  how  helpful  such  filters  may  be.  This  settled  the 
case  for  Lawrence. 

The  city  now  borrowed  thousands  of  dollars,  engaged 
many  workmen,  accepted  plans  which  Mr.  Mills  had 
made  free  of  charge,  and  proceeded  to  make  huge  sand 
filters  which  covered  two  and  a  half  acres  of  ground. 

As  the  work  went  on  everybody  was  interested.  It 
certainly  did  not  look  as  if  such  filters  could  do  any 
particular  good,  for  they  were  made  simply  of  layers  of 
gravel  and  of  coarse  and  fine  sand,  with  pipes  under- 
neath. The  water  was  to  go  from  the  river  to  the  surface 
of  the  filters,  and  from  there  it  was  to  soak  through  the 
sand  and  be  carried  in  pipes  to  all  parts  of  the  city. 

After  about  one  year  of  work  the  filters  were  ready, 
and  before  using  them  bacteriologists  examined  a  sample 

of  the  water  in  the  laboratory,  just  as  they  always  do 

125 


126  TOWN  AND  CITY 

in  such  cases,  and  found  millions  of  microbes  in  every 
spoonful  of  it.  This  showed  how  much  it  needed  to  be 
purified,  but  no  one  except  a  scientist  could  have  any 
idea  how  the  microbes  would  be  taken  out  of  the  water.* 
Nevertheless,  after  several  months  even  unscientific  per- 
sons began  to  understand  the  wonderful  work  which 
was  being  done.  They  saw  river  water  with  its  load  of 
microbes  before  it  went  on  the  filters ;  they  also  saw  it 
after  it  came  from  the  pipes  underneath,  and  they  believed 
the  bacteriologists  who  told  them  that  this  water  was 
now  almost  as  free  from  microbes  as  a  mountain  stream. 
But  still  they  wondered  if  the  filters  would  continue  to 
do  good  work  year  after  year. 

The  answer  came  two  years  after  they  were  finished. 
Lowell  suffered  from  another  epidemic;  one  hundred 
and  seventy-four  people  were  ill ;  and  Lawrence,  remem- 
bering that  every  typhoid  epidemic  in  Lowell  used  to 
mean  a  worse  siege  yet  for  herself,  waited  anxiously. 
This  time,  however,  she  escaped.  In  fact,  her  filters  now 
worked  so  well  from  one  year's  end  to  another  that  only 
one  fifth  as  many  people  died  from  typhoid  fever  each 
year.  That  means  that  the  citizens  of  Lawrence  are  now 
five  times  as  safe  from  typhoid  fever  as  they  used  to  be. 

No  wonder  the  city  believes  in  filters.  No  wonder 
the  whole  country  has  learned  a  lesson. 

Lawrence  used  to  be  such  an  unhealthful  place  that 
people  dreaded  to  live  there.  To-day  it  is  one  of  the 


PURIFICATION  OF  WATER  AND  SEWAGE  127 

most  healthful  cities  in  Massachusetts,  and  both  the 
citizens  and  the  world  know  that  sand  filters  have  done 
more  for  the  health  of  Lawrence  than  anything  else  the 
city  has  ever  paid  for.  When  they  were  put  in  there 
were  but  two  others  of  the  kind  in  America.  Now,  how- 
ever, from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other,  cities  are 
making  them  as  fast  as  their  citizens  understand  how 
much  they  need  them. 

In  some  places  a  mechanical  filter,  as  it  is  called,  does 
much  the  same  work  in  a  different  way ;  that  is,  it  clears 
out  multitudes  of  microbes.  These  filters  are  also  widely 
used.  The  truth  is  that  intelligent  citizens  everywhere 
are  beginning  to  see  that  a  good  filter  means  more  for 
the  protection  of  life  and  health  than  doctors  and  car 
loads  of  medicine. 

Even  so  long  ago  as  1885  the  legislature  of  the  state 
of  Massachusetts  decided  that  the  Board  of  Health  should 
give  advice  to  the  towns  and  cities  of  the  state  in  all 
questions  of  water  and  sewage;  and,  in  order  that  this 
might  be  done  wisely,  the  Board  examined  every  river,  lake, 
and  pond  in  the  state,  and  knew  just  how  safe  and  just 
how  unsafe  the  water  was  in  the  different  towns  and  cities. 

Massachusetts  has  also  ordered  that  no  town  or  city 
shall  supply  itself  with  water,  or  put  in  a  sewage  system, 
without  showing  the  plans  to  the  State  Board  of  Health. 
Thus  she  is  able  to  protect  the  water  rights  of  each 
family,  town,  and  city  in  the  state. 


128  TOWN  AND  CITY 

She  can  do  this  wisely  because  she  has  studied  the 
sewage  as  well  as  the  water  question. 

The  great  sand  filters  of  Lawrence  are  intended  for 
nothing  more  than  to  purify  the  river  water,  and  in  this 
they  succeed.  But  the  state  has  done  even  more  than 
that.  She  has  established  what  is  called  an  experiment 
station  and  here,  for  years,  she  has  been  trying  to  discover 
some  way  by  which  cities  may  get  rid  of  their  own  sew- 
age without  ruining  the  drinking  water  of  neighboring 
cities.  The  station  is  in  Lawrence. 

These  experiments  began  in  1887,  and  are  still  going 
on.  Through  them  scientists  in  Massachusetts  have 
learned  more  about  purifying  sewage  than  4ias  ever  been 
known  before.  They  have  made  sewage  filters  of  every 
sort  and  tested  them  faithfully.  Each  separate  sewage 
filter  is  like  a  long  barrel ;  some  large,  and  some  small ; 
they  all  stand  in  the  experiment  station,  and  from  the 
experiments  that  scientific  experts  have  made  by  run- 
ning sewage  through  those  filters,  they  have  discovered 
many  important  facts. 

They  have  learned  how  to  change  the  worst  sort  of 
sewage  into  clear  and  sparkling  water.  They  have 
learned  that  no  matter  how  any  sewage  looks  or  smells 
when  it  is  poured  upon  a  good  sand  filter,  and  no  matter 
how  many  millions  of  microbes  there  may  be  in  every 
thimbleful  of  it,  still  after  it  has  soaked  through  the 
filter  and  run  off  through  the  drainpipes  underneath 


PURIFICATION  OF  WATER  AND  SEWAGE 


129 


ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  of  these  microbes  will 
have  vanished. 

They  have  found  that  they  can  make  filtered  sewage 
as  safe  to  drink  as  the  well  water  of  Lawrence,  This 
has  surprised  the  world.  No  one  knows  precisely  how 
the  work  is  done,  but  it  is  plain  that  somewhere  between 
the  top  of  the  filter  and  the  bot- 
tom most  of  the  swarming  microbes 
have  been  killed  and  taken  out  of 
the  way.  And  now,  from  different 
parts  of  the  world,  scientific  men  as 
well  as  other  people  go  to  see  the 
curious  sighrj^-  a  filter  with  yellow, 
disagreeable  sewage  on  top  and  a 
stream  of  clear,  pure  water  running 
out  below.  It  looks  like  magic,  but 
those  who  use  the  filter  are  willing 
to  tell  the  secret.  They  say  that  SAND  FILTER 

sewage  filters  are  made  very  much    From  coarse  gravel  to  fine 
like  those  for  water.    First  of  all  are  sand 

the  drainpipes.  Above  these  is  a  layer  of  the  smallest 
stones ;  next,  a  layer  of  coarse  sand,  and  on  top  a  layer 
of  very  fine  sand.  The  whole  together  makes  a  bed 
four  or  five  feet  thick.  This  is  the  whole  scheme.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  a  simple  machine  to  do  such  marvelous  work. 
Nevertheless,  within  this  machine,  living  on  each  grain 
of  sand,  is  the  innermost  secret  of  the  sand  filter. 


130  TOWN  AND   CITY 

We  all  know  that  certain  creatures  spend  most  of 
their  time  underground,  —  as  the  angleworm  does,  and 
the  mole.  Yet  besides  these,  on  every  inch  of  ground, 
there  are  millions  and  millions  of  smaller  creatures  that 
we  cannot  see. 

Some  of  them  drift  here  and  there  with  the  dust  in 
the  air;  but  most  of  them  never  leave  the  earth;  it  is 
their  home,  and  I  suppose  there  are  more  of  these 
microbes  on  every  foot  of  ground  to-day  than  there  are 
human  beings  on  the  earth. 

Many  people  act  as  if  they  considered  all  microbes 
dangerous.  On  the  contrary,  however,  many  of  them  are 
the  best  friends  we  have.  We  can  only  see  them  with 
the  microscope,  but  they  are  as  truly  alive  as  you  and 
I,  and,  to  keep  alive,  those  that  help  us  in  our  filters 
need  oxygen,  moisture,  and  food.  This  explains  the  way 
they  purify  our  water  and  sewage,  for  on  each  grain  of 
sand  in  every  good  sand  filter  thousands  of  these  friendly 
microbes  live  and  multiply.  They  are  especially  thick  on 
the  surface  of  a  filter,  and  it  is  just  there  that  the  most 
important  work  is  done. 

Moreover,  they  are  a  hungry  host,  and  they  find  the 
very  best  food  for  themselves  in  the  worst  kind  of 
sewage. 

When  the  dreadful  stuff  is  poured  on  a  filter  it  is 
allowed  to  soak  through  slowly;  in  fact,  men  have 
noticed  that  the  more  slowly  it  goes  the  purer  it  gets. 


PURIFICATION  OF  WATER  AND  SEWAGE  131 

The  reason  is  that  the  microbes  do  better  work  when 
they  have  time  to  take  every  impure  thing  out  of  the 
sewage.  In  doing  this,  as  it  turns  out,  they  also  destroy 
the  disease  microbes  that  were  in  the  water.  Thus  we 
see  that  by  feeding  one  set  of  microbes  we  have  killed 
the  other  set.  In  some  way  our  friends  have  killed  our 
enemies  and  we  are  safe. 

This  is  the  whole  secret  of  the  success  of  the  sand 
filter.  It  is  the  friendly  microbes  on  the  sand  that  purify 
the  water  and  save  us  from  disease  microbes. 

In  all  this,  sewage  filters  and  water  filters  are  alike, 
but  there  is  an  important  difference  in  the  way  they  are 
used.  Those  microbes  on  the  sand  need  oxygen  as  well 
as  food.  They  will  die  without  it,  and  it  seems  that  water 
holds  so  much  oxygen  that  the  microbes  get  what  they 
need  out  of  it.  Accordingly  a  water  filter  may  be  kept 
at  work  continuously.  For  this  reason  it  is  called  a  con- 
tinuous filter. 

Sewage,  on  the  other  hand,  holds  so  little  oxygen  that 
when  the  microbes  on  the  sand  are  covered  by  it  they 
are  in  danger  of  being  suffocated.  In  other  words,  the 
cleaner  the  liquid  which  is  poured  over  them,  the  more 
oxygen  the  microbes  get  from  it,  while  the  worse  the 
liquid,  the  less  oxygen  there  is  for  the  microbes  to  use. 
Sewage,  therefore,  needs  an  intermittent  filter,  and  its 
name  shows  just  what  happens  and  why  it  succeeds.  Sew- 
age is  poured  on  a  filter  until  it  is  a  few  inches  deep  all 


132 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


over  the  top.  This  soaks  slowly  through  and  runs  off. 
Another  flood  is  then  poured  on,  and  this  is  done  once 
or  twice  every  day.  When  sewage  is  filtered  in  that 
way  it  is  always  purified,  because  the  microbes  have  had 
a  chance  to  get  oxygen  out  of  the  air  between  each  flood 
of  sewage ;  that  is,  because  they  could  get  air  they  have 
kept  alive  and  busy. 

It  is  quite  the  other  way  if  sewage  is  left  on  a  filter 
all  the  time  for  weeks  together.  In  such  a  case  the  sand 
microbes  get  no  air,  and  they  are  sure  to  die.  When 
that  has  happened  the  sewage  microbes  go  safely  through 
from  top  to  bottom  of  the  filter  and  escape  in  the  water 
that  runs  from  the  drains  underneath.  By  their  escape  we 
therefore  know  that  their  enemies,  the  sand  microbes,  are 
dead.  Perhaps  we  might  really  say  that  they  have  been 
drowned,  for  what  they  needed  was  air,  and  they  could 
not  get  it. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

PREVENTABLE   DISEASE   AND   THE   JAPANESE   ARMY 

Of  every  hundred  soldiers  who  died  in  the  Spanish- 
American  war  during  1898  twenty  were  killed  by  bullets 
and  eighty  by  microbes. 

The  war  was  soon  over,  lasting  but  four  months ;  still 
it  was  long  enough  to  show  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  had  not  acted  according  to  its  knowledge 
of  disease  microbes.  It  had  allowed  four  times  as  many 
men  to  die  needlessly,  in  camp  and  tent,  away  from 
even  the  sound  of  cannon  and  gun,  as  fell  fighting  in 
the  cause  they  were  willing  to  die  for. 

Up  to  that  time  any  other  soldiers  fighting  in  any 
other  country  would  have  met  the  same  fate,  for  all 
previous  wars  had  had  the  same  death  record.  At  last, 
however,  came  the  Russo-Japanese  struggle  of  1902. 
Japan  knew  that  defeat  for  her  meant  a  ruined  empire. 
She  also  realized  that,  according  to  the  law  of  numbers, 
she  and  her  forty-eight  million  people  would  surely  go 
under  in  the  fight  against  Russia  and  her  one  hundred 
and  twenty-eight  million.  Nevertheless,  she  proposed  to 
win,  and  one  of  the  officers  explained  to  Major  Seaman 
how  they  planned  to  do  it. 

133 


134  TOWN  AND  CITY 

"  Russia  may  be  able  to  place  two  million  men  in  the 
field,"  he  said ;  "  we  can  furnish  five  hundred  thousand. 
You  know  in  every  war  four  men  die  of  disease  for  every 
one  who  falls  from  bullets.  That  will  be  the  position  of 
Russia  in  this  war.  We  propose  to  eliminate  disease  as 
a  factor.  Every  man  who  dies  in  our  army  must  fall  on 
the  field  of  battle.  In  this  way  we  shall  neutralize  the 
superiority  of  Russian  numbers  and  stand  on  a  compar- 
atively equal  footing." 

In  other  words,  it  was  as  if  Japan  had  said,  "  Our  sol- 
diers will  not  be  allowed  to  die  of  preventable  diseases." 

After  that  those  soldiers  were  the  wonder  of  the  world. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  went  into  the  campaign. 
They  traveled  by  rail,  by  steamer,  and  by  transport; 
they  crossed  the  Corean  Straits  and  the  Yellow  Sea 
into  Corea  and  China ;  they  marched  across  hundreds  of 
miles  of  country  where  water  was  not  safe  to  drink ;  they 
bought  food  from  people  who  were  ready  to  sell  what  was 
not  safe  to  eat;  they  entered  towns  where  men  and 
women  were  dying  of  contagious  disease ;  they  were 
also  wounded  in  battle  like  other  soldiers ;  but,  from 
first  to  last  they  were  strong  for  the  march,  healthy  in 
camp  and  on  the  battlefield,  and  more  free  from  diseases 
than  any  soldiers  who  ever  went  to  war  before. 

This  was   so   extraordinary   that  doctors  and    army 

^officers  all  over  the  world  were  eager  for  an  explanation. 

They  wanted  to  know  what  it  was  that  kept  hot,  thirsty 


PREVENTABLE  DISEASE 


135 


men  from  drinking  typhoid  microbes  from  polluted  wells 
and  unclean  streams  as  they  marched  ;  also,  why  it  was 
that  hungry  soldiers  did 
not  eat  half-ripe  fruit  and 
unwholesome  food  on 
their  journey,  and  how 
it  happened  that  when 
they  reached  a  town  they 
were  able  to  escape  con- 
tagious disease  from  the 
houses  and  the  beds  of 
those  who  had  died  from 
smallpox,  scarlet  fever, 
and  the  like. 

In  answer  to  all  this  the 
Japanese  made  no  secret 
of  what  they  did.  They 
acknowledged  that  they 
had  first  learned  about 
disease  microbes  from 
scientific  men  of  other 
nations,  and  said  that 
they  had  simply  put  their 


knowledge  into  practice. 


A  JAPANESE  SOLDIER 
He  fights  both  man  and  microbe 

This  was  evidently  the  case.  The  government  had 
decided  that  instead  of  waiting  for  some  epidemic  to 
show  which  water,  or  food,  or  town  was  safe  and  which 


136  TOWN  AND  CITY 

unsafe,  it  would  find  out  the  actual  condition  of  things 
before  the  soldiers  had  any  chance  to  risk  their  lives.  It 
claimed  that  the  best  scheme  was  to  fight  the  microbes, 
or  at  least  to  find  out  where  they  were  and  how  to 
dodge  them,  before  the  soldiers  were  allowed  to  fight 
the  Russians. 

That  then  was  the  secret  of  Japanese  health  and 
success. 

To  carry  out  the  plan,  instead  of  keeping  all  the  doctors 
with  the  army  to  cure  the  men  after  they  were  ill,  some 
were  sent  on  ahead  with  the  scouts. 

"  Doctors  belong  in  the  front,"  they  said,  "  not  in  the 


rear." 


So  they  traveled  in  front  and  certainly  found  enough 
to  do;  for,  whenever  they  reached  a  town,  every  well, 
stream,  or  spring  of  water,  though  it  was  sparkling 
and  cool  and  as  clear  as  crystal,  was  examined  with 
the  utmost  care.  Those  Japanese  scientists  knew  that 
thirsty  soldiers  sometimes  act  as  if  they  were  willing  to 
forget  all  they  knew  about  water  dangers  and  drink 
almost  anything  wet ;  while  at  the  same  time  they  also 
knew  that  a  great  thirst  is  safer  than  unknown  water 
from  polluted  streams. 

With  this  in  mind  water  examinations  were  thorough, 
and  the  doctors  posted  up  notices  accordingly.  These 
notices  were  very  definite.  Sometimes  they  said,  "  This 
water  is  good  "  ;  again  it  would  be,  "  This  water  is  bad," 


PREVENTABLE  DISEASE  137 

or  "  This  water  should  not  be  used  unless  it  is  boiled  for 
half  an  hour."  When  the  army  arrived  soon  afterward 
each  man  was  ready  to  heed  the  posters. 

So  it  was  in  other  directions.  When  troops  of  men 
went  off  on  a  foraging  expedition  a  doctor  always  went 
with  them.  He  tested  the  different  kinds  of  fruit,  meat, 
and  vegetables  which  the  natives  wished  to  sell ;  and 
if  the  fruit  was  too  ripe  or  the  meat  too  old  or  dis- 
eased, he  put  up  a  notice  saying  so.  No  one  touched  it 
after  that. 

When  this  same  health  delegation  reached  any  town 
through  which  the  soldiers  must  pass,  it  examined  the 
condition  of  the  houses,  and  if  contagious  diseases  were 
found,  that  part  of  the  town  was  quarantined ;  that  is,  no 
soldier  was  allowed  to  go  into  it  on  any  account,  or,  if  this 
could  not  be  managed,  the  entire  army  marched  on  to 
another  place.  Again  also  it  was  a  signboard  that  told 
the  men  what  to  do. 

Not  only  did  the  government  try  by  every  method  to 
keep  the  army  in  good  fighting  trim,  but  other  doctors 
stayed  in  camp  to  give  hygiene  lectures  to  the  soldiers. 
They  talked  about  eating  and  told  the  men  what  was 
safest  to  use ;  they  talked  about  drinking  and  told  them 
why  boiling  was  the  only  way  to  make  unknown  water 
safe ;  they  discussed  contagious  disease  and  explained 
how  it  traveled  from  man  to  man;  in  fact,  in  every 
possible  way  they  made  it  plain  that,  as  a  rule,  what  the 


138  TOWN  AND  CITY 

men  ate  and  what  they  drank  would  decide  whether  they 
would  be  well  or  ill,  whether  they  would  live  or  die. 

They  went  even  further  than  this,  for  they  talked  about 
bathing  to  keep  the  pores  of  the  skin  open,  and  about 
soiled  finger  nails  that  go  loaded  with  microbes.  More 
than  that,  on  the  war  ships  the  command  was  that  before 
every  engagement  the  men  should  bathe  and  put  on 
clean  underwear.  It  seems  that  the  surgeons  had  noticed 
that  when  a  piece  of  broken  shell  crowds  soiled  linen 
into  a  wound,  it  turns  out  to  be  a  more  dangerous  affair 
than  when  the  linen  is  clean. 

Thus  one  command  followed  another.  Evidently  the 
government  thought  that  when  a  man  had  given  up  his 
home  and  was  ready  to  die  for  his  country,  he  deserved 
the  best  advice,  the  best  care,  and  the  best  food  his 
country  could  give  him. 

The  soldiers  in  turn  wished  to  be  healthy,  and  there- 
fore followed  directions.  What  was  the  result  ? 

Major  Seaman,  from  whom  we  learn  most  of  these 
facts,  says  that  when  he  visited  the  military  hospital  in 
Tokyo  he  found  that  over  one  thousand  wounded  men 
had  already  been  received  and  that  not  one  had  died, 
while  all  who  were  still  in  the  hospital  looked  as  if  they 
would  recover.  The  same  was  true  of  other  reports 
from  other  hospitals. 

Early  in  the  war  6636  men  had  been  wounded  and 
taken  to  the  reserve  hospital  at  Hiroshima;  yet  up  to 


PREVENTABLE  DISEASE  139 

August  first  only  thirty-four  of  this  great  number  had 
died,  although  some  may,  of  course,  have  died  later. 
This  astonished  surgeons  in  every  other  land. 

Then  there  was  the  hospital  ship  Hakuai  Maru.  In 
seven  trips  she  took  over  two  thousand  wounded  men 
across  from  China  to  Japan,  and  not  one  of  them  died 
on  the  way. 

Never  in  any  war  has  there  been  such  a  record  of 
healed  wounds.  Part  of  the  credit  belongs  to  the  vigor- 
ous health  of  the  wounded  men,  and  part  to  the  skilled 
doctors  and  nurses. 

When  the  war  was  over, — when  Japan  had  been  vic- 
torious in  every  great  battle  and  had  saved  her  empire,  — 
she  made  out  her  reports.  Then  it  was  that  the  nations 
of  the  world  learned  their  lesson,  and  saw  how  they  too 
might  save  their  patriots  in  time  of  war  and  increase  the 
number  of  their  living  heroes. 

The  entire  campaign  lasted  over  eighteen  months,  and 
during  that  time  72,450  Japanese  soldiers  lost  their  lives. 
Of  these  over  57,000  died  either  on  the  battlefield  or 
from  the  after  effects  of  their  wounds  while  only  15,300 
died  of  disease. 

Compare  these  figures  with  the  old-fashioned  war 
records  and  see  how  the  Japanese  turned  things  topsy- 
turvy. Instead  of  losing  four  times  as  many  soldiers  by 
preventable  disease  as  by  bullets,  Japan  actually  lost 
less  than  one  fourth  as  many  in  that  useless  way.  In 


140  TOWN  AND  CITY 

doing  this  she  won  as  great  a  victory  over  the  microbe 
as  over  the  Russian. 

What  Japan  did  for  her  soldiers  cities  are  gradually 
learning  to  do  for  their  citizens,  and  the  chapters  of  this 
book  are  intended  to  help  in  this  respect.  We  all  need 
to  know  that  it  is  much  easier,  much  more  economical, 
and  much  more  important  to  keep  people  from  taking 
disease  than  it  is  to  cure  them  after  they  have  it.  We 
need  to  know  that  prevention  saves  many  times  as  many 
lives  as  medicine  ever  cured,  and  we  need  to  know  what 
particular  prevention  will  save  us  from  what  particular 
disease. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
TOBACCO  AND  NATIONAL  VIGOR 

Japan  knows  that  a  race  of  weak  boys  can  never  turn 
itself  into  a  race  of  strong  men.  She  is  also  determined 
that  the  small  size  of  her  men  shall  make  no  difference 
in  her  power  as  a  nation  or  in  the  number  of  her 
heroes.  To  make  sure  of  this  she  tries  to  protect  her 
boys  from  whatever  may  weaken  them  in  body  or  mind. 
This  explains  the  remarkable  proclamation  of  the 
Emperor  of  Japan  in  March,  1900.  But  before  telling 
about  that,  another  bit  of  history  will  show  how  America 
helped  Japan  along. 

Several  years  ago  Professor  Seaver,  of  Yale  University, 
decided  to  do  what  he  could  to  discover  whether  the  use 
of  tobacco  has  any  special  effect  on  growing  boys.  He 
was  director  of  the  Yale  gymnasium,  and  for  nine  years, 
until  1897,  he  weighed  and  measured  all  the  stude'nts 
who  entered  the  university.  He  not  only  measured  them 
in  height,  in  chest  girth,  and  in  weight,  but  he  also  asked 
the  age  of  each,  and,  most  important  of  all,  he  asked 
whether  they  had  smoked  before  coming  to  college. 

The  answer  to  each  question  was  carefully  written 

down  and  kept  as  a  record.    At  the  end  of  the  nine 

141 


142 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


years,  when  Dr.  Seaver  studied  and  compared  these 
student  records,  he  made  several  important  discoveries. 
First  of  all  he  saw  that,  as  a  rule,  the  smokers  who 
had  entered  Yale  during  that  time  were  about  fifteen 
months  older  than  the  non-smokers.  This  seemed  to 
prove  that  the  minds  of  the  boys  who  smoked  did  not 
work  so  well  as  the  minds  of  those  who  did  not  smoke, 
which,  of  course,  explained  their  being  older  when  they 
entered  college. 

As  for  the  size  of  their  lungs,  it  appeared  that  those 
of  the  average  non-smoker  could  hold  about  five  cubic 
inches  more  air  than  the  lungs  of  the  smoker;  more- 
over, and  quite  as  fortunate  for  themselves,  the  average 
height  of  the  non-smokers  was  about  one  third  of  an  inch 
more  than  that  of  the  smokers.  This  was  especially  sur- 
prising, for,  as  we  have  seen,  they  were  younger  and 
ought  naturally  to  have  averaged  a  trifle  shorter. 

As  these  measurements  and  comparisons  went  on  vari- 
ous people  were  getting  interested.  Naturally,  of  course, 
non-smokers  were  rather  elated,  while  the  smokers  were 
surprised  and  disgusted.  But  the  next '  point  was  to 
examine  the  men  who  were  already  in  the  university. 
They  were  divided  into  three  groups : 

1.  Those  who  never  used  tobacco. 

2.  Those  who  had  used  it  for  a  year  at 
least. 

3.  Those  who  used  it  irregularly. 


TOBACCO  AND   NATIONAL  VIGOR  143 

The  records  now  showed  how  much  more  the  non- 
smokers  grew  than  the  smokers  while  they  were  in 
college.  The  non-smoking  group  gained: 

,    (  10.4  per  cent  more  than  those  who  had  smoked  a  year. 
In  weight  \ 

(.    6.6  per  cent  more  than  those  who  had  smoked  irregularly. 

j  24  per  cent  more  than  those  who  had  smoked  a  year. 
(  ii  per  cent  more  than  those  who  had  smoked  irregularly. 

In  girth     (  26.7  per  cent  more  than  those  who  had  smoked  a  year. 
of  chest      (  22  per  cent  more  than  those  who  had  smoked  irregularly. 

In  lung      (  77  per  cent  more  than  those  who  had  smoked  a  year. 
capacity     \  49  per  cent  more  than  those  who  had  smoked  irregularly. 

Yet,  after  all,  the  mind  counts  most  in  any  great  uni- 
versity, and  if  the  smoker  could  prove  that  even  though 
his  body  had  lost  in  height  and  size,  his  mind  had 
gained  so  much  the  more  in  keenness,  why  of  course 
the  tables  would  be  turned  again,  and  he  could  do  some 
exulting.  Dr.  Seaver,  therefore,  looked  into  the  scholar- 
ship of  the  two  sets  of  men,  and  found  that  out  of 
every  hundred  of  those  who  took  the  highest  rank  only 
five  were  smokers,  while  ninety-five  were  not  smokers ; 
but  among  the  rest  of  the  students  sixty  out  of  every 
hundred  smoked. 

When  the  Japanese  heard  all  this  they  gave  heed. 
But  before  going  into  the  subject  we  should  remember 
that  every  boy  in  Japan  used  to  smoke  and  that  many 
girls  smoked  too.  We  should  also  remember  that  Jap- 
anese tobacco  is  not  very  strong,  and  not  so  harmful  as 


144  TOWN  AND  CITY 

ours.  Yet  in  spite  of  this,  several  years  after  Dr.  Seaver's 
experiments,  a  set  of  Japanese  men  decided  that  the 
wealth,  the  intelligence,  and  the  fighting  power  of  the 
nation  would  be  increased  if  the  children  could  be  kept 
from  smoking.  The  result  was  that  in  December,  1899, 
the  House  of  Representatives  in  Tokyo  discussed  the 
matter  with  a  good  deal  of  excitement;  the  subject  of 
discussion  being  called,  "  A  Bill  for  prohibiting  the 
smoking  of  Tobacco  by  Young  Persons." 

All  those  who  supported  this  bill  used  America  and 
Germany  as  the  great  arguments.  They  said  that  in 
Germany  youths  under  sixteen  were  forbidden  to  smoke 
lest  they  should  become  unfit  for  soldiers.  They  also 
said  that  in  America,  at  the  time  of  the  war  with  Spain, 
hundreds  of  young  men  were  refused  by  the  doctors 
because  they  were  not  vigorous  enough  to  be  soldiers, 
and  that  ninety  out  of  every  hundred  of  them  were 
smokers.  They  spoke  of  Dr.  Seaver's  work  at  Yale,  and 
said  that  both  in  the  military  academy  at  West  Point 
and  in  the  naval  academy  at  Annapolis  the  United  States 
government  does  not  allow  any  smoking  whatever. 

All  this  was  quite  convincing,  especially  when  one  man 
added :  "  If  we  expect  to  make  this  nation  superior  to 
the  nations  of  Europe  and  America,  we  must  not  allow 
our  youths  in  common  schools,  who  are  to  become  the 
fathers  and  mothers  of  our  country  in  the  near  future, 
to  smoke.  If  we  desire  to  cause  the  light  of  the  nation 


TOBACCO  AND  NATIONAL  VIGOR  145 

to  shine  forth  over  the  world,  we  ought  not  to  follow  the 
example  of  China  and  India." 

Another  man  said,  "When  I  see  useful  young  men, 
with  their  school  uniforms  on,  smoking,  I  feel  very  sad 
and  often  I  say  to  myself,  '  How  can  they  accomplish 
great  things  when  they  are  slaves  to  tobacco  ? ' :  Indeed, 
everybody  seems  to  have  had  the  same  notion  about  the 
importance  of  the  bill.  Mr.  Omura  said : 

In  1876  I  received  treatment  from  Dr.  Takagi  in  the  Tokyo  hospital, 
who  made  an  incision  in  my  face,  as  you  see,  because  I  was  in  a  hopeless 
state  from  tobacco  poison.  At  that  time,  as  I  heard  afterwards,  all  gave 
up  hope  for  me,  and  my  relatives  discussed  the  methods  of  carrying 
my  body  back  to  its  last  home.  But  here  I  am,  well  and  strong.  Thus 
from  my  own  experience  I  know  that  tobacco  is  a  bad  thing ;  hence  I 
should  like  to  see  it  prohibited  altogether,  if  it  be  possible.  I  began  to 
smoke  at  nine,  and  at  twenty-four  or  twenty-five  the  habit  had  become 
simply  fearful.  I  spent  much  money  not  only  for  tobacco  itself  but 
also  for  smoking  materials.  Several  times  I  fell  down  unconscious  on 
the  floor.  Such  was  my  fondness  for  tobacco.  But  twenty  years  have 
passed  since  I  gave  it  up  entirely,  and  I  have  gradually  become  stronger, 
and  at  present  am  a  little  stronger  than  Mr.  Inouye.  ...  If  one 
smokes,  whether  he  is  young  or  thirty  years  of  age,  whether  a  student 
in  a  university  or  in  a  post-graduate  class,  he  will  be  poisoned ;  hence 
I  favor  the  idea  of  prohibiting  smoking  altogether  among  students. 

Later  some  one  said: 

As  to  schools  and  scholars,  we  pay  taxes  and  bear  heavy  expenses 
for  their  support,  and  we  watch  with  deepest  interest  the  success  of 
every  scholar.  And  yet,  if  the  weight  of  their  bodies  decreases,  the 


1 46  TOWN  AND  CITY 

lung  capacity  lessens,  and  finally  the  scholars  themselves  become  dis- 
eased because  of  no  proper  protection  against  smoking  tobacco,  then 
the  taxes  paid  by  the  people  at  great  sacrifice  will  become  fruitless. 
I  earnestly  entreat  you  to  reconsider  the  question  of  putting  special 
restriction  upon  students. 

After  full  discussion  the  bill  was  changed  a  little,  and 
on  December  19,  1899,  was  adopted  by  the  House  of 
Representatives.  Two  months  later  the  same  bill  was  dis- 
cussed in  the  House  of  Peers.  The  great  question  was 
whether  it  would  be  defeated  there,  just  as  our  Senate 
at  Washington  often  defeats  bills  passed  by  the  House 
of  Representatives.  Yet  the  outlook  was  favorable  from 
the  start.  Among  others  Mr.  S.  Izawa  spoke.  He  said : 

I  too  wish  to  say  a  word  in  support  of  this  excellent  bill.  ...  A 
few  days  ago  some  one  sent  us  some  printed  matter.  What  was  written 
thereon?  It  was  written  that  should  this  bill  become  a  law  of  the  nation, 
there  would  be  a  loss  of  yen  200,000  to  the  National  Treasury.  Non- 
sense !  He  is  a  traitor.  He  is  willing  to  sacrifice  the  character  of  our 
youths  simply  for  yen  200,000.  What  wickedness  !  Such  a  person  would 
most  surely  try  to  urge  the  use  of  opium  by  and  by.  As  there  are  such 
traitors,  this  bill  must  by  all  means  be  carried  unanimously,  and  thus  the 
honor  and  wisdom  of  this  House  will  be  vindicated  before  the  public. 

Mr.  T.  Obata  said  : 

I  cannot  agree  with  Messrs.  Murata  and  Izawa.  I  admit  that 
tobacco  is  injurious  to  young  persons,  but  parents  themselves  should  be 
able  to  stop  its  use.  .  .  .  Should  our  children  be  caught  by  the  police 
on  the  streets  because  of  smoking  tobacco,  this  very  fact  is  more  of  a 
disgrace  to  our  children  than  smoking  itself. 


TOBACCO  AND  NATIONAL  VIGOR  147 

At  this  point  Mr.  J.  Kodama  sprang  to  his  feet  and  said : 

I  wanted  to  keep  silence,  but  as  I  heard  the  gentleman  speaking 
against  this  bill,  I  felt  I  must  say  a  few  words  in  its  favor.  I  heard 
from  an  American  gentleman  that  in  his  country  a  large  number  of 
volunteers  for  the  army  service  were  rejected  on  account  of  the  weak- 
ness of  their  hearts,  and  the  chief  reason  assigned  for  this  defect  was 
their  habitual  use  of  tobacco.  I  do  not  need  to  say  any  more  from 
the  educational  standpoint,  but  if  our  youths  are  to  become  unfit  for 
military  service  by  the  use  of  tobacco,  it  is  alarming.  By  all  means,  let 
us  stop  the  use  of  tobacco  by  young  persons. 

Thus  the  discussion  went  on  until  the  whole  House  of 
Peers  seemed  to  come  to  the  same  conclusion  ;  for  after 
they  had  voted  on  the  bill  the  president  of  the  House 
said  :  "  Since  there  is  no  objection,  the  original  bill  stands 
approved." 

On  the  sixth  day  of  March,  1900,  by  proclamation  of 
the  Emperor  of  Japan,  the  bill  became  the  law  of  the  land. 
The  words  of  the  prohibition  are,  "  The  smoking  of 
tobacco  by  minors  under  the  age  of  twenty  is  prohibited." 

Penalties  are  attached,  and  the  law  went  into  effect 
on  the  first  day  of  April,  1900. 

Though  Japan  has  done  more  than  any  other  govern- 
ment in  this  direction,  still  she  learned  her  lesson  from 
America ;  and  we  are  becoming  more  and  more  sensible 
in  the  matter  of  putting  our  own  knowledge  into  practice. 
Our  government  led  the  way  in  her  military  schools, 
but  our  athletes  are  following  close  behind;  in  fact, 


148  TOWN  AND  CITY 

they  are  so  strict  that  it  almost  looks  as  if  they  did 
the  leading.  Throughout  the  country  the  captains  and 
trainers  of  the  best  of  our  football,  baseball,  and  basket- 
ball teams,  of  the  best  boat  crews  and  athletic  meets,  are 
united  against  the  use  of  tobacco  by  their  men.  Many 
of  them  prohibit  it  absolutely.  The  reason  is  that  they 
wish  their  men  to  win,  and  they  are  sure,  just  as  the 
Japanese  are,  that  tobacco  will  be  a  hindrance  to  them. 
They  say  it  puts  the  body  machine  out  of  order. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
FOOD  INSPECTION 

Springfield,  Massachusetts,  had  no  question  about 
her  epidemic  in  1882,  nor  about  the  cause  of  it.  The 
drainage  was  good  and  the  houses  clean  and  healthful ; 
yet  the  epidemic  was  typhoid  fever,  and  neither  the 
doctors  nor  the  health  department  could  tell  where  it 
came  from.  They  then  asked  the  state  board  of  health 
to  lend  a  hand. 

This  ended  with  the  discovery  that  each  person  who 
was  ill  used  milk  from  the  same  milkman,  that  the  milk- 
man bought  all  he  had  from  a  certain  farmer  in  the  coun- 
try, and  that  a  man  in  the  farmer's  family  had  just  had 
typhoid  fever.  Even  yet,  however,  there  was  a  mystery, 
for  how  did  the  microbes  from  the  body  of  that  particu- 
lar man  ever  reach  the  milk  ?  No  one  could  answer  the 
question,  for  no  one  knew.  Perhaps  the  cans  had  been 
washed  in  water  that  held  the  microbes ;  perhaps  the 
microbes  were  on  the  hands  of  the  man  who  did  the 
milking  ;  perhaps  some  one  had  put  contaminated  water 
into  the  cans  to  increase  the  milk  supply.  In  one  way 
or  another  the  microbes  had  certainly  reached  the  milk, 

for  the  epidemic  proved  it. 

149 


150 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


Springfield  does  not  stand  alone  in  this  sort  of  calam- 
ity; indeed,  a  few  years  ago  a  medical  journal  gave  a 
list  of  three  hundred  and  thirty  outbreaks  of  epidemic 
disease  that  started  from  microbes  in  milk.  One  hun- 
dred and  forty-seven  of  these  cases  were  typhoid 
fever,  while  most  of  the  others  were  scarlet  fever 
and  diphtheria. 

It  is  not  disease  microbes  alone  that  damage  milk,  for  a 
second  great  mischief  is  done  when  too  many  microbes 
of  even  the  harmless  kind  are  in  it.  Ninety-two  New 
York  babies  once  taught  the  board  of  health  a  lesson 
on  this  subject.  It  happened  during  the  summers  of 
1902-1903,  and  various  doctors  watched  the  case.  Fifty- 
one  of  the  babies  were  using  milk  just  as  the  city  milk- 
man brought  it,  while  forty-one  received  what  is  called 
pasteurized  milk,  that  is,  milk  that  has  not  been  boiled 
but  has  been  heated  long  enough  to  kill  the  microbes. 


KINDS  OF  MILK  AND 
NUMBER  OF  MICROBES 

NUMBER 

OF 

BABIES 

WELL 

ALL 

SUMMER 

QUITE 
ILL 

AVERAGE 
WEEKLY  GAIN 
IN  WEIGHT 

AVERAGE 
NUMBER  OF 
DAYS  OF 
DIARRHEA 

DEATHS 

Pasteurized   .     .     . 

41 

31 

10 

4  oz. 

3-9 

I 

1000    to    50,000    per 

cubic  centimeter 

Raw  Milk      .     .     . 

51 

17 

34 

3-5  oz. 

11.5 

2 

1,200,000  to   10,000,- 

ooo  per  cubic  centi- 

meter 

FOOD  INSPECTION  151 

The  point  to  discover  was  which  milk  was  best  for 
every  kind  of  baby.  After  the  records  were  kept  and 
the  preceding  table  made  out  no  one  had  any  doubts 
on  the  subject.  One  cubic  centimeter  stands  for  about 
twenty  drops. 

While  the  doctors  were  studying  the  case  thirteen  of 
the  babies  who  used  raw  milk  were  so  sick  that  they 
were  changed  over  to  the  heated  milk  diet;  indeed, 
unless  this  had  been  done,  the  chances  are  that  some  of 
them  would  have  died  and  increased  the  raw-milk  death 
list.  Yet,  in  a  matter  of  that  kind,  no  one  dares  to  go 
far  enough  to  see  how  many  babies  will  really  die,  for 
they  are  far  too  precious  to  be  risked. 

Nevertheless,  the  experiment  proved  very  clearly  that 
babies  who  use  pasteurized  milk  are  much  more  likely 
to  live  and  less  likely  to  be  ill  than  other  babies. 

Of  course,  milk  without  microbes  in  it  at  the  start 
would  have  been  even  better  for  the  babies  than  milk  in 
which  the  microbes  had  been  killed ;  but  the  trouble  is 
that  impure  milk  never  tells  any  tales  about  itself,  for 
it  looks  as  pure  and  sweet  as  the  purest  milk  in  the 
market.  Between  the  epidemics  and  the  babies,  how- 
ever, we  see  that  microbes  may  damage  milk  in  two 
definite  ways: 

1.  By  being  carriers  of  disease. 

2.  By  being  too  numerous,  although  they 
may  not  be  disease  microbes. 


152  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Springfield  suffered  from  the  disease  carriers,  while 
the  fifty-one  New  York  babies  suffered  from  the  num- 
ber of  the  microbes.  To  explain  how  mere  numbers 
could  harm  them,  we  must  know  that  milk  is  as  good  a 
food  for  microbes  as  for  babies,  and  that  they  multiply 
so  fast  in  it  that,  if  it  is  not  cold,  one  microbe  will 
become  two  hundred  in  three  hours,  ten  thousand  in 
six  hours,  ten  million  in  nine  hours,  and  so  on. 

We  see  then  that  if  a  few  are  in  it  when  it  leaves  the 
cow  in  the  country,  there  may  be  countless  millions  of 
them  by  the  time  it  reaches  the  baby  in  the  city. 

Now  there  is  just  one  special  objection  to  these  mul- 
titudes of  microbes  that  are  harmless  in  themselves,  and 
that  is  the  change  they  make  in  the  milk  while  they 
are  multiplying  in  it.  The  truth  is  that  even  harm- 
less microbes  damage  milk  in  this  way,  and  the  more 
microbes  the  more  harm.  When,  therefore,  the  num- 
bers increase  by  the  hundred  million  for  each  thimble- 
ful of  it,  the  milk  finally  becomes  so  changed  that  it 
injures  the  stomach  and  intestines  of  delicate  human 
beings.  Strong  men  may  not  notice  the  difference,  but 
babies  are  almost  sure  to  suffer.  This  is  all  the  more 
pitiful  because  they  have  to  use  more  milk  than  any 
one  else. 

As  the  table  shows,  those  New  York  babies  who 
used  raw  milk  were  taking  anywhere  up  to  ten  mil- 
lion microbes  with  each  twenty  drops  of  milk  they 


FOOD  INSPECTION  153 

drank,  and  such  a  large  number  is  sure  to  do  great 
mischief. 

The  health  department  of  New  York  City  has  decided 
that  milk  is  not  spoiled  for  use  if  there  are  no  more  than 
one  million  microbes  for  every  twenty  drops,  but  they 
say  a  larger  number  must  not  be  allowed  and  that  a 
smaller  number  is  safer.  To  make  things  perfectly  safe, 
doctors  recommend  boiled  or  pasteurized  milk  for  babies 
and  frail  people. 

Naples,  Italy,  is  rather  safer  from  microbes  in  milk 
than  many  other  cities,  because  in  that  place  the  milk- 
man drives  the  cow  through  the  streets  from  house  to 
house,  and  those  who  need  milk  may  bring  out  their 
own  milk  pails  and  keep  their  eyes  on  the  man  while  he 
does  the  milking.  They  may  also  see  that  he  adds  no 
water  to  what  they  buy. 

Such  milk  is  likely  to  satisfy  the  three  conditions  of 
pure  milk,  —  freshness,  cleanliness,  and  freedom  from 
disease  microbes. 

In  the  milk  that  we  use  every  one  of  the  points  might 
be  lacking,  and  yet  our  eyes  could  tell  us  nothing  about 
it.  The  fact  is  that  bacteriologists  with  their  micro- 
scopes are  the  only  ones  who  can  decide  positively 
whether  milk  is  pure  or  impure,  for  they  are  able  to  dis- 
cover what  is  in  it.  During  the  same  day,  in  the  same 
city,  in  cans  of  milk  standing  side  by  side,  these  bac- 
teriologists have  found  that  one  can  may  hold  only  three 


154  TOWN  AND   CITY 

hundred  thousand  microbes  to  the  cubic  centimeter, 
while  another  can  may  have  as  many  as  one  hundred 
and  eighty  million  in  the  same  quantity. 

When  this  was  made  plain  New  York  City  decided 
that  a  business  which  supplies  four  million  people  with 
one  of  their  most  important  lines  of  food  must  not  be 
allowed  to  go  on  doing  mischief  to  unsuspecting  people. 
The  health  department,  therefore,  took  up  the  matter 
and  sent  a  man  off  to  make  investigations.  He  was  to 
do  two  things : 

1.  To  see  how  microbes  get  into  milk  in 
the  first  place. 

2.  To  see  what  could  be  done  to  keep 
milk  as  pure  as  possible  from  the  time  it  left 
the  farm  until  it  reached  the  city.1 

1  Boston,  Washington,  St.  Louis,  Chicago,  Baltimore,  Cleveland,  Rochester, 
and  many  other  cities  are  already  wide-awake  and  active  in  regard  to  the  purity 
of  their  milk  supply. 


CHAPTER   XX 

FOOD    INSPECTION  (continued) 

The  inspector  was  to  visit  farms  and  cows  in  every 
direction. 

This  was  a  great  undertaking,  for  New  York  City  uses 
about  a  million  quarts  of  milk  daily,  and  it  comes  not 
only  from  New  York  State  itself  but  from  Pennsylvania, 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  New  Jersey.  Some  of  it 
travels  four  hundred  miles  to  get  to  the  city,  while  among 
those  who  send  it  there  is  every  sort  of  man  owning  every 
sort  of  cow:  men  who  are  clean  and  men  who  are 
unclean ;  men  who  are  intelligent  and  men  who  are 
ignorant;  cows  that  are  well  cared  for,  sleek,  and  clean, 
and  cows  uncared  for  and  neglected;  cows  that  are 
healthy  and  cows  that  are  unhealthy. 

More  than  that,  the  inspector  soon  saw  that,  according 
as  the  men  and  cows  were  clean  or  unclean,  the  milk 
was  pure  or  impure.  He  also  noticed  how  the  milking 
was  done. 

In  some  cases  each  pan  and  pail  was  scalded,  each 
stable  clean,  each  cow  groomed,  while  the  milkman 
himself  not  only  washed  his  hands  before  he  milked  but 
also  wiped  the  milk  bag  with  a  damp  cloth.  Indeed,  in 


156  TOWN  AND  CITY 

such  places  as  that  "Cleanliness"  was  evidently  the 
motto,  for  everything  looked  as  if  the  owner  had  said  : 
"  You  microbes  may  starve  to  death  before  I  '11  give 
one  of  you  a  chance  if  I  can  help  it.  I  am  your  enemy." 


A  MODEL  DAIRY 
Clean  cows,  clean  stables,  and  clean  milk 

Milk  frpm  these  "model  dairies,"  as  they  are  called, 
is  pure  and  sweet  and  safe.  It  is  an  astonishing  con- 
trast to  that  which  comes  from  what  we  might  call  the 
"  microbe  dairies."  Here  the  untidy  farmer  seems  to  say 
to  his  microbes,  "  Truly  I  'm  the  best  friend  you  have, 
and  I  '11  do  everything  to  please  you."  In  his  stable, 


FOOD  INSPECTION 


157 


therefore,  the  inspector  saw  straw  and  dust  on  ceiling  and 
floor,  cows  ungroomed,  pans  and  pails  unscalded.  When 
milking  time  came  there  was  no  washing  of  hands  or 
milk  bag ;  on  the  contrary,  with  his  hands  as  they  were, 


UNCLEAN  MILK  is  SOLD  FROM  HERE 

the  milkman  took  the  pail,  rinsed  it  with  water  that 
might  or  might  not  have  disease  microbes  in  it,  went  to 
the  dusty  stable,  raised  the  dust  by  kicking  the  cow  to 
make  her  stand  up,  slapped  her  on  the  side  to  make  her 
move  along,  sat  clown  on  his  stool,  and  began  to  milk 
vigorously. 

To  soften  his  hands,  he  wet  them  with  the  first  milk 
he  drew,  letting  it  drop  from  them  into  the  milk  pail. 


158  TOWN  AND  CITY 

As  he  now  pumped  up  and  down  against  the  milk 
bag  bits  of  dust  went  into  the  pail  with  the  milk.  At 
the  same  time  flies  troubled  the  cow,  and  to  drive  them 
away  she  often  switched  her  tail  from  side  to  side.  This 
raised  more  dust,  and  scattered  tail  hairs  in  the  milk. 


ICE  TO  KEEP  MICROBES  FROM  MULTIPLYING 

The  milkman  gave  no  heed,  however,  for,  being 
ignorant,  he  supposed  that  straining  would  remedy  all 
that.  Finally,  therefore,  he  sent  the  milk  through  a  fine 
wire  or  cloth  sieve  ;  and  if  it  moved  slowly,  as  if  the  holes 
were  getting  stopped,  he  thrust  his  fingers  in,  stirred  up 
the  settlings,  and  hastened  matters  in  that  way. 

His  work  was  now  ended;  the  milk  was  ready  for  the 
city  and  the  babies. 


FOOD  INSPECTION  159 

A  bright  high-school  boy  was  talking  about  this  mat- 
ter the  other  day,  and  he  said :  "  Yes,  that 's  about 
the  way  it  is ;  but  you  see,  on  our  farm  we  use  wire 
screens  first,  and  then  we  run  the  milk  through  eight 
layers  of  cheese  cloth.  That  takes  the  microbes  out, 
does  n't  it  ?  " 

"  By  no  means,"  I  answered.  "  Once  in  they  stay, 
for  they  are  small  enough  to  go  wherever  milk  can 
go.  Straining  simply  takes  out  straw,  hair,  mud,  and 
so  on." 

One  of  the  strong  points  about  a  model  dairy  is  that 
men  are  careful  to  keep  milk  cold  there.  They  know 
that  the  only  way  to  prevent  microbes  from  multiplying 
after  they  are  once  in  the  milk  is  to  keep  it  as  nearly 
ice  cold  as  possible.  This  is  done  by  packing  ice  around 
the  can,  not  by  putting  it  inside  where  it  will  do  harm  by 
adding  water  microbes  to  milk  microbes,  diluting  the 
milk  at  the  same  time. 

The  two  styles  of  dairies  teach  the  same  lesson  from 
opposite  sides. 

Model  dairies  teach  that : 

1.  The  cleaner  the    milk  the   fewer  the 
microbes. 

2.  The  fresher  the   milk   the   fewer   the 
microbes. 

3.  The    colder   the    milk    the   fewer   the 
microbes. 


160  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Microbe  dairies  teach  that : 

1.  The  more  dirt  the  more  microbes. 

2.  The  older  the  milk  the  more  microbes. 

3.  The  warmer    the    milk    (before    it    is 
cooked)  the  more  microbes. 

In  view  of  all  this,  the  health  department  printed  care- 
ful instructions  about  cleanliness,  coolness,  and  pure 
milk.  It  sent  these  instructions  in  all  directions,  ordered 
railroad  companies  to  keep  cans  of  milk  on  ice  as  they 
carried  them  to  the  city,  and  set  a  standard  of  pure  milk 
which  I  give  in  as  few  words  as  possible. 

1.  Pure  milk  must  taste  sweet. 

2.  It  must  not  be  weakened  by  water. 

3.  Chemicals  must  not  be  put  in  it  to  pre- 
vent it  from  turning  sour. 

4.  It  must  hold  no  more  than  one  million 
microbes  per  cubic  centimeter. 

5.  It   must  not  be  kept  for  sale   in  any 
place  where  people  live  and  sleep,  nor  in  any 
place  which  opens  into  such  a  room. 

6.  It  must  not  be  skimmed  before  it  is 
sold. 

To  make  sure  that  the  milk  the  city  gets  is  up  to  the 
standard,  when  it  first  arrives  the  milk  inspectors  meet 
it  here  and  there  at  different  stations  in  the  city.  Their 
work  begins  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  for  then  it  is 
that  trains  begin  to  come  in  with  their  precious  load,  — 


FOOD  INSPECTION 


over  twenty-five  thousand  cans  of  milk,  and  forty  quarts 
in  each  can.  This  shows  how  much  of  the  milk  supply 
of  New  York  City  comes  in  by  train. 

Some  of  it  needs  no  examining,  for  it  travels  cold 
from  clean  farms  that  can  be  trusted.  Other  cans  need 
careful  testing,  and 
whenever  they  fail  to 
meet  the  standard  they 
are  seized  and  the  own- 
ers fined. 

The  health  depart- 
ment of  Rochester, 
New  York,  allows  but 
100,000  microbes  to 
each  cubic  centimeter 
of  milk  that  is  sold 
in  the  city.  To  make 
the  quality  even  bet- 
ter during  the  summer 
months,  when  microbes  multiply  fastest  and  babies  suf- 
fer most,  there  are  special  inspectors  and  special  milk 
stations  in  different  parts  of  the  city.  Here  milk  is  sold 
so  clean  and  so  cold  that  the  average  number  of  microbes 
is  only  10,000  for  each  cubic  centimeter.  To  secure 
this,  the  city  does  its  main  work  on  a  farm  near  by.  On 
it  each  cow  is  healthy  and  clean ;  each  stable  and  each 
milkman  is  equally  clean ;  while  bottles  and  cans  are 


MICROBES  MULTIPLY  IN  THE  SUNSHINE 


162 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


steamed  and  sterilized  each  time  they  are  used.  More 
than  that,  from  the  moment  they  are  filled  until  the 
milk  is  sold  they  are  closely  packed  in  ice. 

No  pasteurizing  or  boiling  is  done  on  this  farm,  for  at 
all  times,  everywhere,  clean,  sweet  milk  is  the  best  food 


CLEAN  MILK  FOR  ROCHESTER  BABIES 

a  baby  can  have.    Boiled  or  pasteurized  milk  is  the  next 
best  thing. 

The  diagram  shows  the  results  of  this  work  in  Roches- 
ter. Follow  that  slender  line  across  the  page  and  let 
your  eye  rest  at  each  small,  round  circle.  Now  connect 


FOOD  INSPECTION 


I63 


each  with  the  figures  which  belong  to  it  at  the  top  and 
at  the  side  of  the  diagram.  Notice  the  year  and  the 
number  of  babies  who  died  that  year,  and  you  will  see 
what  clean  milk  in  Rochester  has  done  for  the  death 
rate  of  city  babies,  —  almost  one  thousand  deaths  in 


CITY  OF  ROCHESTER,  N.Y. 
DEATHS  OF  CHILDREN  UNDER  5  YEARS  OF  AGE. 
1892.  Began  Efficient  Milk  Inspection. 
1897.  Municipal  Milk  Stations  Established. 
1900.  Established  a  Municipal  Standard  of  100,000  Bacteria  per  c.c. 


THE  MILK  RECORD  OF  ROCHESTER 
It  shows  how  clean  milk  saved  life 

1892  and  less  than  five  hundred  in  1904.  Yet  during 
the  intervening  years  the  city  increased  in  size  by  about 
thirty  thousand  people.  Surely  every  intelligent  mother 
in  the  land  must  be  wishing  that  she  could  take  her 
baby  to  Rochester  to  live. 

While  trying  to  get  pure  milk,  cities  are  also  trying 
to  get  pure  food  of  every  kind. 


1 64  TOWN  AND   CITY 

In  June,  1905,  Cleveland,  Ohio,  showed  her  zeal  in 
this  direction,  for  the  inspectors  then  sent  two  thousand 
five  hundred  pounds  of  meat  from  the  markets  to  the 
garbage  plant.  In  May,  1906,  the  health  officers  were 
quite  as  much  in  earnest  when  they  seized  thirty-eight 
cattle,  twenty-nine  hogs,  four  sheep,  and  five  calves, 
telling  the  owners  that  they  were  not  fit  to  be  killed 
and  sold  for  food. 

New  York  City  is  so  particular  in  this  matter  that,  in 
1902,  she  destroyed  over  twelve  million  pounds  of  unfit 
food  that  various  people  were  trying  to  sell.  Boston  does 
the  same  thing,  and  whenever  a  new  market  is  opened 
in  that  city  an  inspector  goes  to  the  place  and  gives  the 
owner  a  card  stating  the  laws  and  penalties  governing  the 
business.  With  that  as  a  beginning  the  same  inspector 
often  calls  again  to  see  whether  the  instructions  are 
being  obeyed.  If  they  are  not,  he  lets  the  law  attend  to 
the  man,  and  this  generally  ends  by  improving  him. 

Thus  it  is  with  city  after  city.  Each  is  trying  to  pro- 
tect her  citizens  from  spoiled  meat  and  fish,  pouW^f  and 
oysters,  vegetables,  fruit,  and  milk.  There  is,  in  fact, 
a  standard  for  every  article  of  food  we  use, — for  flour, 
sugar,  coffee,  tea,  canned  goods,  honey,  molasses,  butter, 
maple  syrup,  and  countless  other  things,  and  the  duty' 
of  the  inspectors  is  to  see  that  what  is  sold  matches 
what  the  law  requires. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

EPIDEMICS   AND  THE   DISCOVERY    OF   DISEASE 
MICROBES 

Before  any  human  being  had  so  much  as  seen  a 
microbe  or  suspected  the  harm  it  can  do,  a  deadly 
microbe  disease  was  killing  off  silkworms  in  southern 
France  by  the  hundred  thousand  every  year. 

The  serious  side  of  the  matter  was  that  when  silk- 
worms died  at  that  rate  whole  villages  of  industrious 
Frenchmen  were  plunged  into  poverty.  These  people 
are  so  zealous  in  their  silk-raising  occupation  that  some- 
times the  frames  on  which  the  worms  live  are  distributed 
through  a  man's  house  from  attic  to  cellar,  while  the  man 
himself  is  as  busy  bringing  in  mulberry  leaves  by  the  arm- 
ful and  the  sackful  for  the  worms  to  eat  as  the  worms 
themselves  are  busy  with  their  eating. 

Each  day  as  these  worms  grow  older  they  nibble 
away  more  persistently,  until  at  last,  when  thousands 
of  silkworms  are  eating  in  the  same  room,  "  the  noise 
of  their  munching  resembles  the  sound  of  rain  falling 
upon  thick  bushes." 

No  doubt  this  sound  is  like  music  to  the  ears  of  the 

owners,  for  the   one   important  thing  in  the  life  of  a 

165 


1 66  '....      TOWN  AND  CITY 

silkworm  is  that  it  should  have  a  good  appetite.  When 
this  begins  to  fail  its  owner  is  in  despair. 

It  was  this  very  thing,  however,  that  happened  in 
1849.  Just  when  the  worms  ought  to  have  been  eat- 
ing the  most  they  began  to  neglect  their  leaves ;  they 
moved  slowly  and  did  not  grow ;  they  also  grew  weaker, 
thousands  died,  and  the  eggs  of  those  that  lived  either 
would  not  hatch  or  turned  out  sickly  worms. 

Worst  of  all,  when  the  disease  appeared  in  any  room 
there  seemed  to  be  no  way  of  keeping  it  there  ;  it  spread 
to  the  next  room  and  the  next,  until  all  the  worms  in 
the  house  had  it.  Then  from  one  house  it  traveled  to 
another,  and  from  village  to  village,  until  at  last  no  region 
in  the  country  escaped.  Moreover,  it  was  seen  to  be  so 
deadly  everywhere  that  the  first  sign  of  it  in  a  single 
room  gave  any  silk  raiser  a  fright.  He  knew  his  case 
was  hopeless,  for  with  the  disease  once  started  nothing 
could  save  his  worms  or  his  business. 

There  was,  however,  one  plan  that  did  work  for  a  while. 
Many  raisers  sent  to  other  countries  for  their  eggs,  —  to 
Spain,  to  Italy,  to  Turkey.  In  1853  these  foreign  eggs 
hatched  well.  The  worms  were  vigorous ;  they  turned 
into  beautiful  cocoons  that  were  sold  to  silk  merchants 
for  great  sums  of  money,  and  everybody  was  encouraged, 
but  only  for  a  little  while,  for  the  epidemic  was  back 
again  the  year  after,  once  more  bringing  discouragement 
to  the  silk  raisers. 


EPIDEMICS  AND  DISEASE  MICROBES 


I67 


More  than  that,  it  now  spread  to  Italy,  Spain,  and 
Turkey.  It  reached  every  corner  of  Europe,  until  Japan 
was  the  only  country  in  the  world  where  healthy  eggs 
could  be  found. 

Finally,  in  1865,  thirty-six  hundred  important  silk 
raisers  and  merchants  sent  a  petition  to  the  senate  of 
France,  begging  the  gov- 
ernment to  do  something 
to  help  them.  Fortunately, 
as  those  men  turned  their 
minds  from  one  plan  to 
another,  some  one  thought 
of  Louis  Pasteur. 

He  was  a  careful,  scien- 
tific man,  who  knew  how 
to  use  both  his  brains  and 
his  microscope,  and  he  con- 
sented to  move  down  into 
southern  France  and  see 
what  he  could  do  to  save 
the  worms.  Even  before  he  arrived  he  heard  some 
one  speak  of  having  discovered  small  particles  in  the 
body  of  the  worm.  He  himself  now  examined  the  worms 
with  his  microscope  and  found  the  particles  without 
the  slightest  trouble. 

For  the  sake  of  deciding  what  connection  there  was 
between  the  spots  and  the  disease,  he  took  two  sets  of 


FROM  A  SILKWORM  TO 
A  MOTH 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


1 68  TOWN  AND  CITY 

eggs,  —  one  laid  by  a  moth  without  spots,  the  other  by 
a  spotted  moth,  —  and  raised  them  separately.  Each  set 
was  hatched,  ate  leaves,  turned  into  cocoons,  came  out 
of  the  cocoon  as  moths,  laid  eggs,  and  died.  Meanwhile 
Pasteur  watched  these  changes  for  several  generations 
and  learned  four  things : 

1.  A  moth  without  spots  lays  eggs  without 
spots. 

2.  Eggs  without  spots  hatch  worms  with- 
out spots. 

3.  A  diseased  moth  lays  diseased  eggs. 

4.  Diseased  eggs  always  produce  diseased 
worms. 

The  four  points  taken  together  showed  that  spots  and 
disease  were  the  closest  companions,  though  they  did 
not  show  how  the  disease  traveled  from  a  grown-up  dis- 
eased worm  to  a  grown-up  healthy  worm.  That  was  the 
next  thing  to  look  into. 

Since  eating  is  the  main  occupation  of  worms,  food 
experiments  came  first.  Pasteur  proposed  to  see  if 
worms  could  take  the  disease  by  actually  eating  some  of 
the  spots.  But  the  question  was  where  to  get  those 
spots ;  for  no  one  knew  of  their  being  anywhere  except 
in  the  bodies  of  the  worms,  and  it  hardly  seemed  as  if 
there  were  any  way  to  make  a  healthy  worm  eat  a  dis- 
eased worm,  even  if  science  did  need  to  be  helped  along. 
Yet  Pasteur  was  keen  enough  to  think  up  a  happy 


EPIDEMICS  AND  DISEASE  MICROBES  169 

device.  He  took  a  diseased  worm,  pounded  it  up  with 
a  little  water,  bought  a  small  paint  brush,  dipped  it 
into  the  worm  mush,  painted  a  few  leaves  with  it,  and 
gave  them  to  his  pet  worms. 

They  took  hold  without  the  slightest  hesitation,  nib- 
bled away  diligently,  and  ate  up  the  leaves  without  any 
fuss  whatever.  At  the  same  time  all  the  other  healthy 
worms  were  eating  unpainted  leaves,  and  Pasteur  wished 
to  see  whether  there  would  be  any  difference  in  the 
health  of  the  two  sets. 

Day  followed  day ;  each  set  continued  as  well  as  the 
other  until  finally  twelve  days  had  passed;  then  came 
the  change.  The  painted-leaf  eaters  were  not  so  well ; 
spots  appeared  in  their  bodies;  they  were  languid  and 
did  not  eat.  After  that,  until  they  died,  the  history  of 
those  worms  was  like  that  of  all  other  worms  that  had 
the  disease. 

It  was  plain  to  Pasteur  that  he  had  a  clear  case.  He 
saw  that  when  a  spotted  worm  was  eaten  by  a  healthy 
worm  the  disease  went  from  one  to  the  other. 

Nevertheless,  to  make  the  proof  doubly  sure,  he  tried 
the  experiment  in  various  ways,  —  on  young  worms  and 
old  worms,  on  big  worms  and  little  worms,  and  always 
the  disease  followed.  He  became  so  skilled  in  doing 
it  that  he  knew  exactly  when  a  worm  should  have  the 
disease,  and  whether  it  should  appear  in  the  worms 
themselves,  in  the  egg,  the  chrysalis,  or  the  moth.  He 


170  TOWN  AND  CITY 

arranged  all  this  by  regulating  the  time  and  the  manner 
of  feeding  them.  Wherever  he  sent  the  disease  there 
it  went :  either  the  eggs  did  not  hatch,  or  the  worms 
died,  or  the  moths  were  diseased  and  laid  diseased  eggs. 

Of  course  all  that  Pasteur  had  learned  thus  far  was 
that  if  healthy  worms  took  diseased  worm  flesh  into  their 
bodies  they  would  have  the  disease  themselves.  He  still 
needed  to  know  how  the  disease  generally  went  from 
worm  to  worm,  for  certainly,  before  this,  no  worm  had 
ever  had  any  chance  to  eat  up  his  neighbor.  Where, 
then,  did  this  disease  come  from  ?  By  close  watching 
and  more  experiments  Pasteur  now  found  that  healthy 
worms  took  the  disease  even  when  they  ate  nothing 
worse  than  dusty  leaves,  or  leaves  that  diseased  worms 
had  crawled  over.  This  proved  to  him  that  what  passed 
out  of  the  body  of  a  sick  worm  and  either  fell  to  the 
floor  and  turned  to  dust,  or  stuck  to  the  leaf  and  stayed 
there,  was  full  of  something  that  gave  the  disease.  It 
made  the  leaf  as  dangerous  as  if  it  had  been  covered 
with  crushed  worm  paint,  and  showed  that  healthy 
worms  and  diseased  worms  must  never  be  allowed  to 
live  together  on  the  same  leaf. 

Next  came  the  hook  discovery.  It  seems  that  silk- 
worms have  a  way  of  helping  themselves  on  with  tiny 
hooks  at  the  end  of  their  feet.  These  hooks  make  little 
pricks  wherever  they  fasten  themselves,  and  the  worm 
is  quite  as  willing  to  hook  himself  across  the  back  of  a 


EPIDEMICS  AND  DISEASE  MICROBES  171 

friendly  worm  as  across  any  leaf  or  stick  that  comes  in 
its  way.  The  misfortune  was  that  when  a  sick  worm 
pricked  its  way  over  a  healthy  worm  something  from 
its  body  was  left  in  the  tiny  holes,  and  the  healthy  worm 
took  the  disease. 

In  a  way  it  was  as  if  one  worm  had  vaccinated  the 
other,  only  in  this  case,  instead  of  saving  his  life,  the 
vaccination  really  killed  him.  Once  more,  therefore,  it 
was  plain  that  healthy  and  unhealthy  silkworms  must 
be  kept  apart.  Certainly  the  problem  was  growing  more 
and  more  serious;  and  with  so  many  chances  against 
them,  how  in  the  world  were  the  healthy  worms  ever  to 
escape  ?  Yet  the  silk  business  of  the  whole  of  Europe 
depended  on  the  answer  to  the  question. 

Fortunately  Pasteur  knew  that  during  every  silk- 
raising  season  all  the  worms  hatch  and  die  at  about  the 
same  time.  Between  the  seasons,  there  are  no  living 
worms,  neither  does  anything  in  the  dust  live  from  one 
season  to  the  next.  It  was  clear,  therefore,  that  all  the 
disease  that  was  going  to  do  any  harm  was  tucked  away 
in  the  tiny  eggs  and  nowhere  else. 

Since  this  was  so,  Pasteur  saw  that  the  only  way  to 
save  the  worms  was  never  to  allow  a  diseased  egg  to 
hatch.  But  who  could  ever  tell  which  eggs  were  dis- 
eased and  which  were  not  ?  And  even  if  this  could  be 
done,  who  would  ever  be  willing  to  take  the  time  to 
separate  the  two  kinds? 


172  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Really,  however,  the  work  was  easier  than  it  sounds ; 
for,  as  we  already  know,  healthy  moths  are  sure  to  lay 
healthy  eggs.  It  also  happens  that  those  who  raise  silk- 
worms know  perfectly  well  when  any  moth  is  ready  to 
lay  her  eggs,  and  it  was  this  fact  that  helped  Pasteur  to 
see  a  straight  road  out  of  the  whole  difficulty. 

He  decided  that  when  laying  time  came  each  moth 
should  be  put  on  a  separate,  small  piece  of  white  cloth, 
where  she  would  lay  her  wonderful  treasure  of  four  or 
five  hundred  eggs.  After  the  laying,  each  was  to  be 
fastened  to  her  own  bit  of  cloth  near  her  own  eggs  and 
examined  for  spots  when  her  turn  came.  If  she  was 
found  to  have  them,  she  herself,  her  eggs,  and  the  cloth 
on  which  she  had  laid  them  were  to  be  burned  at  once 
for  the  sake  of  saving  the  lives  of  all  the  others.  If,  how- 
ever, she  had  no  spots,  her  eggs  were  to  be  carefully 
kept  for  hatching. 

This  method  was  so  successful  that  it  was  soon 
adopted  everywhere  in  France ;  and  to-day,  in  all  the 
silk- raising  villages,  just  after  the  egg-laying  season, 
hundreds  of  women  and  girls  are  busy  crushing  moths, 
examining  them  under  the  microscope,  burning  some  of 
the  white  cloth  nests  of  eggs,  and  carefully  saving  the 
others.  Finally  Pasteur  knew  that  the  spots  were  mi- 
crobes that  multiplied,  and  through  his  discoveries  he 
not  only  saved  the  silk  industry  of  France  but  he  also 
taught  people  how  to  study  human  epidemics  and  how 


EPIDEMICS  AND  DISEASE  MICROBES  173 

to  fight  them.    His  four  great  discoveries  are  indeed 
more  important  to  men  than  to  worms. 

1.  There    are    such    things    as    disease 
microbes. 

2.  Disease    microbes   carry  disease    from 
one  individual  to  another. 

3.  The  only  way  to  learn  how  they  do  it  is 
to  make  careful,  scientific  experiments. 

4.  Successful  experiments  will  show  how 
to  check  an  epidemic. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

SOME  SAFEGUARDS  AGAINST  EPIDEMICS 

After  Pasteur  had  discovered  why  it  is  and  how  it  is 
that  certain  diseases  travel  fastest  in  crowded  places,  he 
made  several  other  discoveries  which  taught  men  how 
to  prevent  epidemics  in  cities  and  how  to  save  their  lives 
in  spite  of  microbes. 

His  first  patients  were  chickens  that  had  cholera  and 
sheep  that  had  splenic  fever,  and  in  both  cases  he  actu- 
ally used  disease  microbes  to  save  their  lives.  To  do 
this  he  took  two  drops  of  blood  from  a  diseased  animal, 
put  each  drop  into  a  separate  glass  tube  in  a  sort  of 
beef-tea  liquid,  and  let  the  microbes  multiply  there. 

If  he  wanted  what  he  called  weak  microbes,  he  left  his 
tube  untouched  for  days  or  weeks,  for  he  saw  that  the 
longer  he  left  the  microbes  the  weaker  they  grew.  If, 
however,  he  wanted  strong  microbes,  he  used  the  liquid 
within  a  day  or  two  after  he  had  prepared  it. 

In  either  case,  when  he  was  ready  to  use  them  he 
took  a  slender,  needle-like  syringe,  drew  a  few  drops  of 
the  liquid  into  it,  and  pricked  them  through  the  skin  of 
a  healthy  animal.  By  many  experiments  he  found  that 

when  he  used  strong  microbes  the  animals  died  of  the 

174 


SOME  SAFEGUARDS  AGAINST  EPIDEMICS          175 

disease  soon  afterwards,  but  that  when  he  used  the  weak 
microbes  first,  stronger  ones  afterwards,  and  the  strong- 
est ones  last  of  all,  the  animals  escaped  with  no  illness 
whatever. 

Pasteur  finally  became  so  expert  in  this  matter  that 
he  said  he  could  either  give  sheep  and  cows  splenic 
fever  or  save  them  from  it,  according  as  he  used  his 
microbes. 

The  steps  that  led  him  to  the  discovery  were  so  new 
and  unexpected  that  when  he  finally  announced  the 
result  to  the  Academy  of  Science  in  Paris,  the  entire 
body  of  learned  men  burst  into  loud  applause.  Some, 
however,  wishing  to  see  with  their  own  eyes,  asked 
Pasteur  to  give  a  public  exhibition  of  his  weak  microbes, 
his  strong  microbes,  and  his  sheep. 

He  was  glad  to  do  this.  He  was  also  glad  to  accept 
fifty-nine  sheep,  ten  cows,  and  one  goat  from  an  agricul- 
tural society,  for  by  experimenting  on  these  he  was  to 
show  whether  he  could  really  do  what  he  claimed. 

On  the  fifth  day  of  May,  1 88 1,  with  many  visitors  on 
the  ground  to  watch  him,  Pasteur  separated  twenty-four 
sheep,  six  cows,  and  his  one  goat  from  the  rest  of  the 
flock.  To  these  he  gave  a  dose  of  his  weakest  microbes, 
injecting  them  under  the  skin  with  his  slender  syringe. 
The  rest  of  the  flock  received  none  whatever.  Again, 
on  the  seventeenth  of  May  he  gave  the  same  sheep, 
cows,  and  goat  a  stronger  set  of  microbes.  Even  yet, 


176  TOWN  AND  CITY 

however,  he  did  nothing  to  the  other  animals.1  They 
were  reserved  for  the  final  treatment. 

Then,  on  the  last  day  of  the  month,  he  used  the  very 
strongest  of  his  microbes  not  only  on  the  animals  already 
treated  but  also  on  twenty-five  other  sheep  and  on  the 
four  remaining  cows.  Each  received  the  same  dose  so 
that  all  were  treated  alike. 

By  this  time  the  scientists  who  watched  the  experi- 
ment were  very  much  excited,  for,  of  course,  the  question 
was  which  set  of  animals  would  suffer  most,  —  those  that 
had  received  nothing  but  strong  microbes,  or  those  that 
had  had  both  kinds. 

Pasteur  himself  had  no  question  about  it.  He  knew 
that  in  some  mysterious  way,  when  weak,  splenic-fever 
microbes  go  on  ahead  as  a  sort  of  advance  guard  into 
the  blood  of  an  animal,  the  body  prepares  itself  to  resist 
any  sort  of  splenic  microbes  that  may  come  afterwards. 
He  was  so  sure  of  this  that  he  dared  to  make  a  prophecy 
about  it.  He  said  that  not  one  of  the  sheep  that  had 
started  off  with  weak  microbes  would  die ;  that  not  one 
that  had  only  strong  microbes  would  live  ;  that  the  weak- 
microbe  cows  would  escape  entirely,  while  the  others 
would  all  have  the  splenic  fever  and  would  perhaps  die. 

He  made  that  prophecy  on  the  thirty-first  of  May,  at  the 
time  that  the  strongest  microbes  were  given.  He  also 

1  Ten  sheep  were  set  aside  in  the  beginning,  and  from  first  to  last  these  were 
not  touched.  The  record  does  not  explain  the  case  of  the  goat. 


SOME  SAFEGUARDS  AGAINST  EPIDEMICS  177 

said  that  on  the  second  of  June  the  case  would  be  decided. 
In  the  meantime,  therefore,  the  strongest  microbes  were 
to  do  what  they  could  to  both  sets  of  animals. 

When  the  day  arrived,  two  hundred  people  were  on 
hand  to  see  what  had  happened.  Doctors  were  there  and 
newspaper  men ;  scientists,  farmers,  and  senators.  Some 
came  believing  and  some  came  doubting;  but  all  were 
ready  to  be  convinced,  and  the  proofs  were  before  their 
eyes,  for  behold,  each  prophecy  had  come  to  pass. 
Twenty-four  sheep  and  six  cows  were  eating  as  calmly 
as  if  nothing  had  occurred.  This  was  the  set  that  had 
worked  up  from  weaker  to  stronger  microbes.  Not  so, 
however,  with  the  rest  of  the  flock,  for  of  these  twenty- 
one  were  dead  already,  three  others  were  dying,  the  goat 
was  dead,  and  the  four  cows  had  great  swellings  on  their 
bodies  and  were  too  weak  to  eat. 

The  report  of  this  marvelous  experiment  spread  far 
and  wide,  and  cattle  raisers  everywhere  were  now  filled 
with  such  hope  for  the  lives  of  their  sheep  and  their 
cows  that,  during  1881,  thirty-three  thousand  of  these 
animals  were  treated  with  weak  microbes  to  protect  them 
from  splenic  fever,  while  in  1882  the  number  jumped  to 
four  hundred  thousand.  Since  that  time  it  has  become 
quite  the  regular  practice  for  farmers  in  France  to  save 
their  domestic  animals  by  the  microbe  cure. 

For  human  beings  in  cities  all  this  is  most  important, 
because  it  shows  how  we  can  conquer  hydrophobia. 


178  TOWN  AND  CITY 

In  former  times  a  man  or  child  bitten  by  a  mad  dog 
could  hardly  expect  to  escape  the  disease;  but  those 
splenic-fever  experiments  led  Pasteur  to  another  great 
discovery.  He  never  saw  the  hydrophobia  microbe  itself, 
but  by  the  way  the  disease  traveled  from  one  to  another 
he  knew  that  it  must  be  there  and  he  treated  it  accord- 
ingly. Once  more  he  worked  on  the  plan  of  fighting 
the  disease  with  microbes,  and  that  is  the  cure  to-day. 

A  rabbit  dies  of  hydrophobia.  His  spinal  cord  is  then 
taken  from  the  spine  and  dried  for  two  weeks  in  a  cool, 
dark  room  to  weaken  its  power.  It  is  then  crushed  to 
a  powder,  mixed  with  a  salt  solution  to  make  it  liquid, 
and  pricked  through  the  skin  of  the  man  or  child  who 
has  been  bitten.  The  bite  of  the  dog  has  left  the  strongest 
kind  of  hydrophobia  poison  in  the  man's  body,  yet  in 
some  way  the  preparation  made  from  the  spinal  cord  of 
the  rabbit  is  able  to  save  the  man  from  this  awful  disease. 

The  treatment  begins  as  soon  as  possible  after  the 
bite.  The  weakest  dose  is  given  first,  with  a  stronger  one 
every  few  days  for  two  weeks  afterwards.  The  strongest 
of  all  is  then  given  and  the  patient  is  safe. 

Quite  as  wonderful  as  all  this  is  the  way  horses  help 
in  saving  children  from  diphtheria.  During  the  past  few 
years,  in  the  midst  of  their  experiments,  scientific  men 
have  found  that  at  the  very  moment  when  microbes  are 
multiplying  in  the  body,  or  for  that  matter  in  the  liquids 
where  they  are  being  raised  in  the  laboratory,  they  are 


SOME  SAFEGUARDS  AGAINST  EPIDEMICS  179 

also  manufacturing  different  kinds  of  poisons  which  they 
spread  around  themselves. 

It  happens,  indeed,  that  each  disease  microbe  has  its 
own  particular  poison  with  which  it  does  its  own  particu- 
lar mischief.  It  also  turns  out  that  in  many  cases  these 
poisons,  even  when  they  are  separated  from  the  microbes, 
are  as  swift  to  kill  a  man  or  an  animal  as  the  microbes 
themselves  can  ever  be.  This  is  true  of  that  quick,  cruel 
disease,  diphtheria.  In  truth,  poison,  or  toxin  as  it  is 
called,  is  one  of  the  principal  weapons  that  diphtheria 
microbes  use. 

They  reach  the  throat  from  the  air,  and  often  stay 
there  harmless  until  the  person  has  a  cold  or  is  not  feel- 
ing well  generally;  then  they  begin  to  multiply  fast. 
At  the  same  time  they  manufacture  their  own  deadly 
toxin  which  enters  the  blood  and  travels  to  all  parts  of 
the  body.  The  patient  now  has  high  fever,  and  unless 
something  can  be  done  at  once  to  save  his  life,  the  chances 
are  that  he  will  die  from  the  poisoning  and  from  the 
stuff  that  is  growing  in  his  throat. 

Every  year  thousands  of  children  in  every  land  are 
killed  in  this  way.  At  last,  however,  the  remedy  is  at 
hand,  for  in  1890  Dr.  Emil  Behring  announced  his  great 
discovery  that  the  toxin  of  diphtheria  itself  can  be  used 
to  save  us  from  diphtheria. 

In  Detroit,  Michigan,  as  well  as  in  New  York  and  a 
few  other  large  cities,  a  group  of  noble,  healthy  horses 


l8o  TOWN  AND  CITY 

spend  their  lives  in  clean  stables,  producing  the  remedy 
for  us.  Every  day  they  are  groomed  and  exercised,  well 
fed,  and  treated  like  distinguished  friends. 

Still  they  have  to  endure  some  discomfort,  for  when 
they  first  enter  the  service  they  receive,  under  the  skin, 
a  dose  of  toxin  without  any  microbes  in  it.  Every  few 
days  after  that  they  receive  a  larger  dose  in  the  same 
way,  until  at  last  they  are  immune ;  that  is,  it  is  now 
impossible  for  them  to  take  the  disease.  Indeed,  when 
once  immune  they  can  take  toxin  enough  at  one  time 
to  kill  several  horses  that  are  not  used  to  it. 

They  are  immune  because  while  they  have  been 
receiving  the  toxin  into  their  bodies  those  same  bodies 
have  been  manufacturing  something  that  destroys  its 
power.  No  one  knows  just  what  this  is,  or  just  what  it 
does.  We  only  know  that  after  any  particular  horse  is 
immune  there  is  something  in  his  blood  that  can  be  put 
under  the  skin  of  human  beings  to  save  them  from  diph- 
theria. This,  therefore,  is  called  antitoxin. 

After  those  horses  have  received  enough  toxin  to 
make  them  immune  the  tables  are  turned,  and  they 
have  to  contribute  some  of  their  blood  once  in  a  while, 
for  the  sake  of  the  antitoxin  that  men  wish  to  get  out 
of  it. 

If  we  should  visit  the  stables  in  Detroit  where  these 
antitoxin  horses  are  kept,  we  should  find  each  in  his  own 
special  stall.  We  should  also  notice  that  each  stall  has 


SOME  SAFEGUARDS  AGAINST  EPIDEMICS  181 

its  own  small  blackboard  on  which  is  written  the  name  or 
the  number  of  the  horse,  the  date  when  he  received  his 
last  dose  of  toxin,  and  the  date  when  he  must  yield  his 
blood  to  those  who  need  it. 

Everything  is  carefully  done.  The  blood  is  taken  from 
the  neck  of  the  animal,  and  he  suffers  no  more  than 
men  used  to  suffer  when  they  were  bled  for  their  health. 


FRIENDS  WHO  RAISE  THE  ANTITOXIN  FOR  Us 

This  blood  is  then  allowed  to  stand  until  it  clots  or 
separates.  The  watery  part  —  the  serum,  as  it  is  called 
—  holds  the  precious  antitoxin  which  the  body  of  the 
horse  has  manufactured.  This  is  tested,  filtered,  put  into 
small  glass  tubes  in  proper-sized  doses,  and  sent  here 
and  there  to  save  the  children  of  the  country  from 
diphtheria. 


182 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


The  discovery  of  this  wonderful  cure  has  changed 
the  diphtheria  record  of  the  world.  Formerly  in  New 
York  City  forty  out  of  every  hundred  who  had  the 
disease  died  of  it ;  now  it  kills  not  more  than  eight  in 
each  hundred.  The  truth  is  that  the  health  department 
has  worked  hard  for  this  result.  In  1902  it  divided  the 
city  into  eight  districts  and  appointed  a  special  inspec- 
tor for  each  one  of  them. 
These  men  were  on  duty 
day  and  night.  When  a 
case  of  diphtheria  was 
reported  to  the  depart- 
ment, it  was  at  once  tele- 
phoned on  to  the  proper 
inspector,  and  he  attended 
to  it  without  a  moment's 
delay. 

Indeed,  in  a  case  of  diph- 
theria, after  the  microbes 
begin  to  multiply,  there  must  be  no  loss  of  time  in  put- 
ting the  antitoxin  into  the  body,  for  it  is  clear  that  the 
less  toxin  the  microbes  have  had  time  to  make,  the  more 
easily  can  the  antitoxin  help  the  body  to  get  the  upper 
hand.  In  fact,  it  is  now  a  life-and-death  race  between 
the  two  manufacturers.  If  the  microbes  can  make  toxin 
faster  than  the  body  can  make  antitoxin,  they  will  win ; 
but  if  the  body  is  the  swifter  manufacturer,  and  if,  at 


DIPHTHERIA  MICROBES 


SOME  SAFEGUARDS  AGAINST  EPIDEMICS  183 

the  same  time,  it  is  helped  by  antitoxin  from  outside,  it 
will  be  victorious  over  the  toxin. 

For  this  reason  everybody  works  fast  with  diphtheria. 
Fathers  hurry  to  call  the  doctors  or  to  send  word  to  the 
health  department ;  inspectors  and  doctors  hasten  to 
those  who  call  them,  and  as  soon  as  possible  the  anti- 
toxin is  in  the  child's  body,  doing  what  it  can  to  help 
conquer  the  foe. 

Antitoxin  is  then  given  to  each  person  that  has  been 
exposed,  for  this  astonishing  substance  not  only  over- 
comes the  toxin  which  the  microbes  are  already  making, 
but,  if  it  can  have  the  start,  it  prevents  those  microbes 
from  even  beginning  to  make  their  deadly  poison. 

In  New  York  City  the  health  department  furnishes 
antitoxin  free  to  all  who  need  it.  It  is  given  through 
inspectors  and  doctors,  and  as  a  result  of  its  use,  thou- 
sands of  young  people  have  been  kept  alive.  Antitoxin 
has  saved  them  from  diphtheria. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

VACCINATION 

On  a  certain  evening  in  June,  1905,  in  a  certain 
lodging  house, in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  men  were  either  in  their  beds  and  bunks  or  were 
about  to  crawl  into  them,  when  five  city  doctors  appeared 
and  insisted  on  vaccinating  every  man  among  them. 

Crippled  men  and  blind  men,  young  men  and  old 
men,  all  were  summoned  and  all  had  to  submit.  Some 
were  willing  and  some  were  unwilling,  but  the  doctors 
were  firm.  They  worked  fast,  took  arm  after  arm  as 
the  men  marched  past,  and  within  two  hours  all  were 
safely  vaccinated  and  the  doctors  gone. 

The  reason  for  the  rush  was  that  a  man  was  down 
with  smallpox  in  Rochester,  New  York,  and  he  said 
that  he  had  come  from  this  particular  lodging  house  in 
Cleveland.  At  once,  therefore,  the  Rochester  health 
officers  telegraphed  to  the  Cleveland  health  officers 
about  it.  They  in  turn  telephoned  to  the  doctors  of  the 
city,  and  no  man  among  them  delayed  on  the  way  for 
each  one  knew  the  danger.  Each  was,  therefore,  anxious 
to  protect  the  men  who  had  been  exposed  and  to  save 

the  city  from  an  epidemic. 

184 


VACCINATION  185 

Unfortunately  some  of  the  men  were  ignorant  enough 
to  try  to  dodge  the  vaccination.  They  did  not  realize 
that  the  health  department  had  actually  been  too  good 
to  them ;  it  had  kept  them  safe  so  long  that  they  had 
no  idea  of  the  fearful  fate  that  comes  to  places  that 
have  no  wall  of  vaccination  around  them. 

To  understand  this,  citizens  who  object  to  vaccina- 
tion should  have  lived  on  Ponape,  one  of  the  Caroline 
Islands,  in  1854. 

At  that  time  a  whaling  vessel  passed  by,  and  a  sailor 
with  smallpox  was  sent  ashore  to  die.  His  comrades 
sailed  away  and  left  him  there.  He  died  soon  after- 
wards and  was  buried  by  the  natives ;  but  they  saved 
his  clothes,  put  them  on,  lent  them  to  each  other,  and 
for  a  while  were  as  proud  as  peacocks  are  of  their 
splendid  tails. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  a  medical  missionary  on 
the  island  did  all  he  could  to  induce  the  natives  to  burn 
the  clothes  and  not  to  wear  them,  but  not  one  of  them 
would  give  heed.  "  Surely  the  clothes  are  harmless," 
they  said ;  "  we  have  as  good  eyesight  as  the  missionary 
and  we  see  nothing  dangerous  about  them." 

That  was  in  April,  and  then  it  was  that  the  terrible 
history  began.  First  a  few  were  seized  by  smallpox, 
then  others,  and  still  others.  All  were  ignorant :  those 
who  were  ill  lived  and  died  with  those  who  were  well ; 
each  took  the  disease  from  some  one  else,  and  no  one 


1 86  TOWN  AND  CITY 

tried  either  to  protect  himself  or  to  protect  his  friend. 
Thus  the  flame  was  fanned  on  every  side,  so  that  by 
the  middle  of  May  the  scourging  epidemic  was  sweeping 
across  the  island  like  a  prairie  fire. 

The  missionary  had  vaccine  matter,  but  it  was  too 
old  to  be  worth  anything.  He  therefore  determined  to 
try  inoculation  on  himself  first  and  then  on  the  natives. 
This  means  that  he  scratched  the  skin  on  his  own  arm, 
took  a  bit  of  pus  from  one  of  the  sores  of  a  man  sick 
with  smallpox,  and  rubbed  it  into  his  scratch. 

If  he  had  not  already  been  protected  by  vaccination, 
this  inoculation  would  have  given  him  a  slight  attack 
of  smallpox  and  made  him  safe  from  the  disease  for  the 
rest  of  his  life.  As  it  was,  however,  he  found  that  his 
American  vaccination  was  still  protecting  him. 

He  now  turned  his  attention  to  the  natives.  At  first 
they  were  afraid  to  trust  him.  They  said  that  a  foreign 
God  had  sent  a  foreign  disease  to  kill  them,  and  they  did 
not  see  what  good  a  foreign  man  could  do  in  such  a  case. 
A  few,  however,  dared  let  the  missionary  inoculate  them, 
and  when  others  saw  that  these  escaped  they  tried  it  too. 

There  was  reason  in  this,  for  on  every  side  whole  vil- 
lages of  men,  women,  and  children  were  groaning  and 
suffering  and  dying  together. 

To  escape  their  fate  those  who  were  still  well  now 
flocked  to  the  missionary  by  the  dozen  and  the  fifty  each 
day.  They  came  walking  through  the  valleys  and  sailing 


VACCINATION  187 

in  their  canoes  from  every  village  on  the  island,  —  old 
men,  and  babies  in  their  mother's  arms,  young  men,  and 
grandmothers  too,  all  came  together.  Sometimes  the 
babies  screamed  with  fright,  but  their  mothers  held  them 
firmly  while  they  were  inoculated ;  for  by  this  time  they 
were  sure  that  fright  for  a  baby  is  not  half  so  bad  as 
smallpox. 

The  epidemic  spent  six  months  working  its  way  across 
the  island.  When  it  started  there  were  ten  thousand 
people  on  Ponape,  and,  in  spite  of  all  that  inoculation 
had  done,  when  the  six  months  were  over  half  of  those 
merry,  ignorant,  brown-skinned  people  were  dead  and 
buried ;  and  one  sailor  with  smallpox  was  the  cause  of 
it  all.  While  it  lasted  the  missionary  wrote,  "  I  have 
never  witnessed  such  wretched  and  harrowing  misery." 
And  when  it  was  over  he  wrote  again  :  "  We  still  hear 
but  too  distinctly  the  groaning  and  screeching  that 
echoed  through  whole  neighborhoods  of  beautiful  bread- 
fruit groves.  We  can  give  no  adequate  idea  of  the  deadly 
gloom  that  hung  over  us  during  those  dreadful  months." 

It  is  from  such  woe  and  suffering  that  vaccination 
saves  our  cities.  In  these  days,  however,  people  are,  as 
a  rule,  so  well  protected  by  this  vaccination  that  even 
good  citizens  sometimes  grow  thoughtless  about  the 
very  thing  that  protects  them ;  but  the  starting  of  a 
smallpox  epidemic  is  sure  to  frighten  them  into  vacci- 
nation again. 


!88  TOWN  AND  CITY 

New  York  City  shows  this  by  her  records.  Notice 
the  table ;  it  starts  with  1 2  people  who  had  the  disease 
in  1898  and  climbs  steadily  to  1198  in  1901.  Of  that 
number  410  died. 

Date 1898          1899         1900         1901          1902 

Cases  of  smallpox  12  54  132         1198  755 

In  December,  1901,  there  were  four  times  as  many 
cases  as  in  November  of  the  same  year.  Fortunately, 
however,  the  health  department  of  the  city  now  became 
so  thoroughly  alarmed  that,  in  1902,  it  appointed  two 
hundred  vaccinators  for  special  service. 

It  also  sent  letters  to  all  the  large  manufacturers  and 
business  men,  saying  that  the  city  would  not  only  be 
glad  to  send  a  vaccinator  to  any  shop  or  factory,  "  at  any 
time  of  day  or  night,"  but  that  nothing  would  be  charged 
for  the  work  done,  and  that  even  the  vaccine  matter 
would  be  given  free  of  charge. 

In  fact,  all  the  department  asked  was  that  each  un vac- 
cinated citizen  would  have  the  kindness  to  lend  his  arm 
to  the  city  for  a  minute  or  two  and  allow  it  to  be  vacci- 
nated. The  health  officers  knew  that  any  arm  lent  for 
that  purpose  would  do  more  for  the  protection  of  the 
man  himself  and  of  the  city  than  if  it  carried  a  gun  for 
the  shooting  of  some  visible  enemy. 

The  truth,  of  course,  is  that  in  every  city  it  is  the  invi- 
sible foe  that  does  more  harm  than  any  visible  foe  can 


VACCINATION  189 

ever  do  ;  and  in  the  case  of  smallpox  the  arm  of  a  child 
is  as  strong  a  defender  as  the  arm  of  the  strongest  man. 
Besides  sending  letters  and  circulars  of  information  in 
all  directions,  the  health  department  ordered  doctors  and 
inspectors  to  report  each  case  of  smallpox  they  found; 
and  within  forty-eight  hours  after  the  report  came  in  the 
department  proposed  to  vaccinate  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  who  lived  within  two  blocks  of  the  infected 
spot.  To  do  this,  the  whole  company  of  vaccinators  was 
sometimes  rushed  to  the  same  part 
of  the  city  at  the  same  time. 


~~i  r~ 


Special  inspectors  visited  every 
New  York   lodging   house  once     ~~|  |~~ 
a  week.    They  even  went   to  the          •  infected  House 
bedrooms,  when  this  seemed  to  be   VACCINATION  is  REQUIRED 
necessary,  wakened  people,  vaccinated  them,  and  gave 
them  certificates  to  that  effect.    These  certificates  were 
necessary  just  then,  for  the  city  had  made  a  rule  that  no 
man  should  be  allowred  to  spend  two  consecutive  nights 
in  any  city  lodging  house  unless  he  had  a  certificate 
stating  that  he  had  been  vaccinated  recently. 

Thus  it  was  that  New  York  City  carried  on  her  small- 
pox war.  Her  officers  were  doctors,  inspectors,  and  vac- 
cinators,  while  her  private  soldiers  were  of  every  age 
and  size ;  for  each  citizen  who  had  been  vaccinated  was 
in  the  army  of  defense,  and  vaccine  was  the  powerful 
weapon. 


i  go 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


So  much  was  done  that  from  one  hundred  and 
ninety  cases  in  January,  1902,  the  number  dwindled  to 
nine  in  December.  It  had  taken  two  hundred  vaccin- 
ators  six  months  to  do  the  work,  and  during  that  time 
they  had  vaccinated  eight  hundred  thousand  citizens. 


THEY  RAISE  VACCINE  TO  SAVE  us  FROM  SMALLPOX 

This  is  the  way  cities  protect  themselves  in  these 
days.  The  very  first  discovery  of  how  to  save  by  vac- 
cination was  made  by  Dr.  Jenner,  an  Englishman,  in 
1796.  He  saw  that  milkmen  often  had  sores  on  their 
hands,  which  they  caught  from  the  cows  they  milked; 
he  also  noticed  that  such  men  were  as  safe  from  small- 
pox as  if  they  had  been  inoculated  ;  and  by  putting  two 
and  two  together  he  concluded  that  if  a  milkman  can  be 


VACCINATION  191 

saved  by  accident  through  sores  on  the  cow  he  milks, 
it  ought  to  be  possible  to  save  other  men  on  purpose 
through  the  same  sores  on  the  same  cow.  That  was  his 
great  discovery.  He  called  the  pus  "  vaccine  "  because 
vacca  is  the  Latin  name  for  "  cow."  Since  that  time  men 
have  found  that  to  be  perfectly  safe  from  smallpox  they 
need  to  be  vaccinated  about  once  in  seven  years. 

To  make  sure  that  the  vaccine  they  use  is  as  pure  as 
possible,  they  raise  it  on  special  calves  that  are  kept  for 
the  purpose.  The  calves  shown  in  the  picture  live  in 
Detroit,  Michigan.  They  belong  to  the  same  company 
that  owns  the  antitoxin  horses. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  ENEMY  OF  THE  CITY,  —  TUBERCULOSIS 

When  the  steamboat  Slocum  was  burned  on  East 
River  in  1904,  and  when  nine  hundred  merry  excursion- 
ists were  either  burned  to  death  or  drowned  in  a  single 
afternoon,  the  entire  country  was  filled  with  horror. 
Newspapers  used  huge  headlines;  teachers,  preachers, 
doctors,  and  lawyers  talked  of  criminal  neglect  and 
wicked  waste  of  life ;  while  New  Yorkers  themselves 
said  that  death  from  a  preventable  cause  like  that  must 
never  happen  again. 

Now  notice  these  other  facts  and  compare  the  situation. 

During  that  same  year  (1904)  in  the  same  city  of  New 
York,  instead  of  nine  hundred  who  died  by  fire  and 
water,  ten  thousand  other  men,  women,  and  children 
died  of  that  other  preventable  cause,  tuberculosis.  Not 
only  was  this  the  case  in  New  York,  but  in  the  United 
States  as  a  whole  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  human 
beings  died  of  tuberculosis  that  year,  and  in  the  world 
itself  perhaps  a  million. 

Strange  to  say,  however,  in  this  case  neither  news- 
papers nor  citizens  grew  very  much  excited,  probably 

for  two  reasons : 

192 


THE  ENEMY  OF  THE  CITY,  —  TUBERCULOSIS      193 

1.  Few  people  know  what  the  awful  death 
record  is. 

2.  Fewer  yet  know  that  tuberculosis  can 
be  prevented. 

The  fact  is  that  until  1882  no  one  knew  either  how 
the  disease  travels  or  how  to  cure  it.  At  that  time, 
however,  Dr.  Robert  Koch  found  the 
microbe  that  gives  tuberculosis,  and 
through  his  discovery  the  death  record 
of  the  world  will  be  changed  forever. 

He  examined  the  microbe   in  his 
laboratory  under  his  microscope,  no- 

.       ,    .  .  ,      ,  ,.     ,    .  TUBERCLE  BACILLI 

ticed  its  size  and  shape,  studied  its 

Three  thousand  put  end 
habits,  Watched  it  multiply,  found  OUt        to  end  will  measure  one 

what  kills  it,  and  also  what  makes  it     inch 
grow  faster.    He  did  all  this,  knowing  as  well  as  we  do 
that  every  point  he  learned  about  it  would  help  to  save 
the  lives  of  men.    Here  are  a  few  of  his  facts  packed 
closely  together : 

1.  The  real  name  of  the  microbe  is  tuber- 
cle bacillus.1 

2.  It  is  small  and  slender  like  a  tiny  rod. 

3.  Three  thousand  of  these  microbes  put 
end  to  end  will  measure  one  inch. 

4.  Each  separate  one  of  them  is  a  sepa- 
rate plant. 

1  The  plural  of  "bacillus"  is  "bacilli." 


I94  TOWN  AND  CITY 

5.  Each  multiplies  by  dividing. 

6.  The  only  place  where  they  can  mul- 
tiply is  in  the  bodies  of  men  and  animals, 
or    in    laboratories    where    scientists    raise 
them. 

7.  After  they  leave  the  body  they  live, 
but  apparently  they  cannot  multiply. 

8.  They  live  best  in  damp,  dark  places. 

9.  In    such    places    they   live   anywhere 
from  a  few  weeks  to  two  years. 

10.  Bright  sunshine  kills  them  in  a  few 
hours. 

11.  Boiling  kills  them  at  once. 

12.  Cold  does  them  no  harm. 

13.  They  can  live  and  float  around  in  the 
driest  dust. 

14.  They  may  give    tuberculosis  to  any 
part  of  the  body. 

15.  They  give  it  to  the  lungs  most  often. 

1 6.  Tuberculosis  of  the  lungs  is  what  we 
call  consumption. 

The  discovery  of  all  these  facts,  one  by  one,  was  excit- 
ing to  every  doctor,  every  scientist,  and  every  consump- 
tive who  heard  about  them ;  for  each  one  knew  that  a 
turning  point  had  come  in  the  history  of  the  disease,  and 
that  there  was  hope  now  for  thousands  of  people  who 
were  hopeless  before. 


THE  ENEMY  OF  THE  CITY,  —  TUBERCULOSIS      195 

It  was  also  clear  that,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest, 
from  the  richest  to  the  poorest,  from  the  wisest  to  the 
most  ignorant,  all  sorts  of  people  were  exposing  others 
to  the  disease  every  day,  and  that  each  one  was  blame- 
less ;  for  until  Koch's  great  discovery  no  one  knew  the 
facts  about  the  tubercle  bacillus.  Now,  however,  various 


1064        162    104 


110118120   122  124   126  128   130    132    134    130  138 138  J 140 142  144   140   148    160  152  154  156  Ia8 

Cherry  Street 

"LUNG  BLOCK" 

The  shaded  parts  show  courts  and  air  shafts.  Each  letter  stands  for  one  case  of 
consumption  reported  since  1894.  All  the  "a's"  belong  to  1894,  the  "b's"  to 
1895,  the  "c's"  to  1896,  etc.,  up  to  1903 

earnest  men  and  women  learned  these  facts  by  heart 
and  studied  the  history  of  tuberculosis  in  cities. 

They  found  that,  as  a  rule,  there  is  more  consump- 
tion in  the  crowded  parts  of  a  city  than  anywhere  else, 
and  that  even  here  there  is  the  greatest  difference  in 
special  houses  and  special  rooms.  This  was  the  case 
with  what  is  called  "  Lung  Block  "  in  New  York  City. 
Here  during  nine  years  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  cases 
were  reported  to  the  health  department,  and  very  many 


196  TOWN  AND  CITY 

more  were   unreported.    Single  rooms  also  told  their 
sad  stories. 

Mr.  Ernest  Poole,  who  has  studied  the  subject 
thoroughly,  gives  the  report  of  one  of  these  rooms  for 
seven  years.  He  says  it  is  on  the  third  floor,  looking 
down  into  a  court,  and  that  in  it  people  died  of  consump- 
tion steadily,  one  after  the  other. 

1.  A  blind  Scotchman,  in  1894,  nad  con- 
sumption, went   to   the   hospital,  and  died 
there. 

2.  His    daughter   had   consumption   and 
died. 

3.  One  year  later  a  Jew  was  taken  ill  there 
and  died  in  the  summer. 

4.  A   German   woman    took   the  disease, 
died,  and  left  her  husband  there. 

5.  An     Irishman    was    the    victim.     He 
worked    hard,    caught   the    disease,    fought 
against  it  bravely,  but  died  in  1901. 

Another  house  on  the  East  Side  of  the  city  has  dark 
halls  where  you  must  grope  your  way  about ;  seventy 
small  rooms,  with  almost  no  outside  air  and  light,  and 
an  air  shaft  partly  filled  with  rubbish  and  filth.  One 
hundred  and  fifty  people  live  in  that  house  and  die  fast 
of  consumption.  In  the  middle  apartment,  on  the  second 
floor,  five  families  were  lodged,  one  after  the  other,  for 
four  years.  One  of  the  first  family  died,  two  from  the 


THE  ENEMY  OF  THE  CITY,  —  TUBERCULOSIS      197 

second,  and  one  from  the  third,  while  two  members  of  the 
fourth  family  died  in  the  hospital  after  leaving  the  place. 

At  the  last  report  a  fifth  family  of  eight  persons,  was 
living  in  the  same  rooms,  and  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed 
that  they  will  all  escape  the  fate  of  the  others,  yet  after 
they  have  lived  there  for  a  while,  after  one  or  two  of 
them  have  died  there  of  consumption  and  the  rest  of  the 
family  have  been  frightened  away,  other  people  will  visit 
the  rooms.  They  will  look  around  and  will  notice  noth- 
ing more  objectionable  than  darkness,  dirt,  and  close 
air.  They  will  discover  no  microbes,  will  suspect  noth- 
ing, will  agree  to  pay  the  rent,  and  will  come  to  the  rooms 
to  live;  they  will  not  know  that,  instead  of  long  life 
there,  the  chances  are  that  some  of  them  have  come 
to  those  rooms  to  die  and  not  to  live. 

Now  how  does  it  happen  that,  over  and  over  again, 
after  there  has  been  one  death  from  consumption  in  a 
house  other  cases  are  almost  sure  to  follow,  and  then 
still  others  again,  for  years  and  years  afterwards  ? 

The  whole  explanation  is  in  the  power  of  the  microbe, 
the  tubercle  bacillus  itself.  Those  who  examine  the 
room  can,  of  course,  see  no  sign  of  these  microbes,  yet 
there  may  be  millions  of  them  in  the  dust  on  every  side. 
They  may  be  lodged  in  the  cracks  of  the  floor,  may  be 
clinging  to  the  walls  and  the  ceiling,  or  may  be  hidden 
in  the  folds  of  the  curtains.  Often  all  they  need  is  to  be 
stirred  up  by  a  broom  that  has  not  been  dampened,  or 


198  TOWN  AND  CITY 

to  be  flourished  about  with  a  feather  duster;  for  they 
are  thus  tossed  into  the  air  and  are  ready  to  do  their 
mischief. 

As  we  learned  in  Good  Health  dry  dusting  is  a 
calamity  to  those  who  live  in  any  house,  for  it  simply 
lifts  the  microbes  from  the  spot  where  they  are  quiet  and 
harmless,  and  scatters  them  in  the  air  where,  until  they 
settle  again,  they  threaten  all  who  breathe  it.  Damp 
dusters  are  therefore  necessary,  and  wet  sawdust  or 
torn-up  damp  paper  scattered  on  the  floor  before  sweep- 
ing will  keep  down  these  microbes. 

It  is  not  in  tenement  houses  alone  that  these  microbes 
are  found,  but  any  room,  however  richly  furnished,  is 
able  to  protect  them  if  they  are  once  scattered  in  it,  while 
deep  velvet  and  plush  are  fine  shelters  for  them.  After 
microbes  once  reach  such  a  room,  if  care  is  not  taken 
to  disinfect  it  and  kill  them,  they  will  live  there  for 
months  and  even  for  two  years. 

The  very  nature  of  the  microbe  explains  all  this.  It 
has  no  mind.  It  makes  no  plans.  It  simply  lives  on 
when  nothing  kills  it,  and  multiplies  when  it  finds  a  com- 
fortable home.  Yet  it  never  goes  hunting  for  a  home, 
for  it  cannot  move  about  on  its  own  account.  On  the 
contrary,  if  it  is  in  the  air,  the  wind  may  drive  it  any- 
where, and  it  will  stay  where  it  is  tossed  until  something 
starts  it  moving  again.  It  is  so  small  that  a  man  may 
breathe  it  with  the  air.  It  may  escape  all  the  cilia  and 


THE  ENEMY  OF  THE  CITY,  —  TUBERCULOSIS      199 

the  mucus  of  the  air  passages,  and  safely  reach  the  spot 
where  it  grows  the  best,  the  lungs  of  a  human  being. 

Here  everything  is  favorable.  The  place  is  warm  and 
moist,  the  delicate  tissue  is  good  ground  to  grow  in,  and 
the  microbe  begins  to  multiply  promptly. 

Yet  there  is  another  side  to  the  situation.  The  lungs 
themselves  seem  to  make  a  protest.  They  like  the  microbe 
no  better  than  a  human  eye  likes  a  bit  of  cinder.  At  once, 
therefore,  certain  cells  of  the  lungs  hurry  to  the  spot, 
surround  the  microbe,  and  try  to  build  themselves  into  a 
wall  about  it.  In  a  way  it  is  a  sort  of  contest,  and  at  last 
the  multiplying  microbes  and  the  cells  are  bunched 
together  in  a  hard  lump  called  a  tubercle. 

Sometimes  the  cells  of  the  lungs  are  vigorous  enough 
to  fasten  the  microbes  up  so  securely  that  they  cannot 
multiply.  In  this  case  they  become  harmless  and  the 
man  does  not  have  consumption.  At  other  times  the 
microbes  prove  to  be  the  stronger  of  the  two.  The  tuber- 
cles then  increase,  the  man's  lungs  gradually  become 
useless,  —  his  whole  body  being  also  poisoned  by  the 
multiplying  microbes,  —  and  finally  he  dies. 

The  danger  to  other  folks  comes  before  that.  It  seems 
that  as  each  tubercle  grows  larger  the  center  of  it  softens, 
and  the  man  coughs  it  up  if  he  can.  This  is  the  sputum 
so  full  of  danger.  Often  it  has  a  yellow  color  and  is 
full  of  the  microbes  themselves.  The  worse  off  a  man  is, 
the  more  he  coughs  and  expectorates ;  while  the  more  he 


20O 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


expectorates,    the  more  living,  dangerous  microbes  he 
sends  into  the  world. 

Those  who  know  about  it  say  that  a  man  with  con- 
sumption may  expectorate  two  or  three  billion  tubercle 
bacilli  every  twenty-four  hours.  Such  a  man  may  wet 
his  handkerchief  with  the  sputum  ;  he  may  get  it  on 


Males 


Females 


600 
Under  5 

5-9 
.10-14 
15-19 
20-24 
25-34 
35-44 
45-54 
55-64 
65  and  over 


500 


400 

800 

200 

100 
• 

1 
1 

•— 

• 
1 
• 

— 

100 

• 

200 

300 

400 

COO 

200 

100 

100 

200 

WO 

400 


500 


Under  5 
5-9 
10-14 
15-19 
20-24 
25-34 
35-44 
45-54 
55-64 

65  and  over 


MORTALITY  OF  CONSUMPTION  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY  IN  1900 

The  black  bars  show  the  number  of  deaths  for  each  100,000  living  citizens  of  the 

same  age 

the  sheets  and  clothing;  and  there,  as  anywhere  else,  it 
dries,  flakes  off,  flies  about,  and  carries  danger. 

Strange  to  say,  in  cities  the  greatest  danger  is  for 
people  between  fifteen  and  forty-five  years  of  age.  The 
two  diagrams  show  the  case  for  New  York.  In  one  of 
these  notice  the  black  bars  that  grow  longer  for  certain 
years,  and  then  shorter  again  as  the  age  increases;  in 


THE  ENEMY  OF  THE  CITY,  — TUBERCULOSIS      2OI 


the  other  notice  the  circles  which  show  the  number  of 
deaths  of  men  and  women  between  the  ages  of  twenty 
and  forty-four  ;  also  the  great  dark  section  which  shows 
the  proportion  that  died  from  tuberculosis. 

If  consumption,  a  preventable  disease,  had  been  pre- 
vented   in   New  York   City  in    1900,  that  whole  dark 


20  —  29  years 


30  —  44  years 


THE  DEATH  RECORD  OF  NEW  YORK  CITY 

Each  disease  according  to  its  proportion  of  the  whole.    The  large,  dark  space 
stands  for  tuberculosis 

space  would  stand  for  living  men  and  women  who  were 
healthy,  happy,  and  busy  at  the  end  of  1900.  Instead, 
those  citizens  all  died  at  the  age  when  they  should  have 
been  working  most  busily. 

Instead  of  tuberculosis  of  the  lungs  young  children 
are  more  apt  to  have  tuberculosis  of  the  bones,  which 
gives  them  crooked  backs  and  hip  disease.  This  is  often 
cured,  as  the  chapter  on  hospitals  shows. 


202  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Fortunately,  however,  no  one  inherits  any  kind  of 
tuberculosis.  To  be  sure,  children  of  consumptive  par- 
ents often  have  it,  but  they  have  every  chance  to  take  it 
after  they  are  born;  for  they  may  live  in  the  same  house 
with  their  careless,  consumptive  parents,  may  touch  the 
same  things,  breathe  the  same  microbe-laden  air  every 
day,  and  may  even  creep  around  on  the  floor,  where 
dust  and  microbes  are  thickest.  Worse  yet,  without 
intending  the  slightest  harm,  those  parents  may  even 
kiss  their  children  on  the  lips.  They  do  not  know  that 
this  should  never  be  done. 

With  thousands  of  careless  citizens  coughing  and 
expectorating  every  day  for  months  and  for  years,  it  is 
easy  to  understand  how  streets  and  houses,  rooms  and 
people,"  all  become  infected ;  for  each  new  case  of  a  per- 
son who  is  careless  with  his  sputum  means  more  microbes 
to  shift  about,  and  at  a  moment's  notice,  they  are  ready 
to  go  back  into  the  lungs  of  any  human  being  who 
breathes  them.  After  that  the  vigor  of  those  lungs  them- 
selves is  the  only  thing  that  can  save  a  man. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  there  is  no  question  about  the 
mischief  which  tubercle  bacilli  can  do.  Just  as  leaves 
painted  with  one  kind  of  microbe  give  disease  to  silk- 
worms that  eat  them,  and  as  typhoid  microbes  in  drink- 
ing water  may  give  typhoid  fever  to  those  who  drink  it, 
so  it  is  that  the  microbes  of  consumption  in  the  dust  of 
the  air  may  give  consumption  to  those  who  breathe  it. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

WAR  AGAINST  TUBERCULOSIS 

It  is  as  true  to-day  as  it  ever  was  that  the  person  who 
breathes  dust  loaded  with  tubercle  bacilli  is  in  danger  of 
tuberculosis,  and  that  the  only  way  to  escape  the  danger  is 
to  keep  the  lungs  healthy  and  not  to  breathe  such  dust. 

Yet  how  shall  we  keep  from  doing  this  ? 

Careless  people  leave  their  deadly  sputum  in  crowded 
rooms,  cars,  theaters,  stations,  and  saloons.  It  then  passes 
through  all  the  stages  of  drying,  being  crushed,  turned 
to  powder,  and  getting  into  the  air ;  and  afterwards, 
in  each  of  those  places,  people  breathe  the  air  thought- 
lessly. In  New  York  City  a  man  breathes  anywhere 
from  ten  to  four  hundred  microbes  a  minute,  according 
to  the  place  he  is  in ;  and  the  larger  the  number  the 
greater  the  chance  that  tubercle  bacilli  are  among  them. 

When,  therefore,  you  see  a  man  expectorate  carelessly 
in  public  you  have  a  right  to  say  to  yourself:  "One  thing 
is  plain  —  either  that  man  is  absolutely  ignorant  or  abso- 
lutely selfish  ;  either  he  does  not  know  the  laws  of  health, 
the  laws  of  the  microbe,  and  the  laws  of  the  city  against 
spitting,  or  he  is  willing  to  run  the  risk  of  giving  a  deadly 

disease  to  his  fellow-citizens." 

203 


204  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Of  course  it  is  true  that  saliva  without  tubercle  bacilli 
in  it  can  do  no  harm;  but  cities  know,  as  we  do,  that 
what  a  well  man  does  the  ill  man  is  sure  to  do.  For 
this  reason  laws  against  spitting  cover  every  citizen, 
young  and  old,  well  or  ill.  Many  cities  post  their  laws  in 
cars,  stations,  and  all  public  places,  and  they  enforce  them 
or  not  according  to  their  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  their 
citizens.  Here  is  a  New  York  notice: 

Spitting  on  the  floor  of  this  car  is  a  misdemeanor.  $500.00  fine  or 
imprisonment  for  one  year,  or  both,  may  be  the  punishment  therefor. 

The  city  is  so  much  in  earnest  that  men  in  tall  silk 
hats  as  well  as  those  in  shabby  derbys  have  been  fined 
for  breaking  that  law.  The  truth  is  that  New  York  City 
leads  the  country  in  this  tuberculosis  war.  Moreover, 
she  has  two  great  branches  to  her  fighting  army : 

1.  The  health  department  of  the  city. 

2.  The  Committee  on  the  Prevention  of 
Tuberculosis   for   the    Charity    Organization 
Society. 

The  triple  motto  for  both  divisions  and  for  each 
separate  soldier  seems  to  be: 

1.  Tuberculosis   is   preventable;    we    will 
prevent  it. 

2.  Tuberculosis  spreads;  we  will  check  it. 

3.  Tuberculosis    can    be   cured;    we    will 
cure  it. 


WAR  AGAINST  TUBERCULOSIS 


205 


In  carrying  out  this  motto  the  city  has  sent  inspec- 
tors to  infected  rooms,  has  ordered  houses  to  be  pulled 
down  because  they  were  not  fit  to  live  in,  streets  to  be 
widened  and  cleaned,  parks  to  be  increased,  knowing  all 
the  while  that  there  are  just  two  ways  to  save  a  city. 

1.  By  destroying  the  tubercle  bacillus. 

2.  By  making  the  bodies  of  citizens  strong 
enough  to  resist  them. 

The  health  department  does  two  other  things : 

1.  It  asks  city  doctors  to  report  every  case 
of  consumption  which  they  find. 

2.  It  offers  to  examine,  free  of  charge,  any 
specimen  of  sputum  that  is  sent  to  the  city 
laboratory. 

Every  doctor  in  the  land  knows  how  important  both 
these  points  are,  for  the  secret  of  curing  consumption  is 
to  discover  it  when  it  first  begins,  and  the  only  possible 
way  to  do  this  is  to  examine  the  sputum  for  tubercle 
bacilli. 

Tuberculosis  of  the  lungs  is  really  somewhat  like  a 
fire  in  a  lumber  yard.  If  the  fire  is  discovered  when  it 
first  starts,  a  single  pail  of  water  will  dash  it  out;  but  if  it 
is  left  until  the  whole  lumber  yard  is  blazing,  even  the  fire 
department  cannot  be  of  any  help. 

So  too  with  tuberculosis.  Three  quarters  of  the  cases 
found  early  and  taken  care  of  are  cured,  while  the  cure 
itself  is  often  as  simple  as  the  fire  cure,  although  in 


206  TOWN  AND  CITY 

the  case  of  consumption  four  things  are  needed  instead 
of  one: 

1.  Fresh  air  from  morning  until  night  and 
from  night  until  morning. 

2.  Sunshine. 

3.  Wholesome  food  with  an  abundance  of 
fresh  milk  and  eggs. 

4.  Rest  for  body  and  mind. 

If  the  patient  discovers  the  disease  soon  after  he  takes 
it,  and  if  he  can  get  those  four  things,  he  will  probably 
recover ;  if  he  cannot  get  them,  he  will  probably  die. 

Those  who  understand  tuberculosis  best  speak  very 
positively  about  using  medicines  for  it.  They  say : 

1.  No  medicine  has  yet  been  found  that 
will  cure  consumption. 

2.  Advertised    medicines    often    contain 
alcohol,  which  hastens  consumption. 

3.  No  person  with  consumption  can  afford 
to  run    the    risk    of   taking   any  advertised 
medicine. 

4.  I  n  taking  medicine  a  consumptive  should 
go  by  the  advice  of  a  good  doctor. 

Then  too,  from  first  to  last,  they  should  seek  those 
four  best  things,  —  fresh  air,  sunshine,  wholesome  food, 
and  rest ;  but  these  are  often  hard  to  get. 

When  men  and  women  who  have  consumption  are 
crowded  into  dark  rooms  of  towering  tenement  houses  in 


WAR  AGAINST  TUBERCULOSIS  207 

such  a  city  as  New  York,  how  are  they  to  get  fresh  air 
twenty-four  hours  a  day?  When  they  have  dark  closets 
for  living  rooms,  how  are  they  to  find  their  sunshine? 
When  they  have  little  money,  how  can  they  afford  to  buy 
the  freshest  eggs,  the  freshest  milk,  and  an  abundance  of 
wholesome  food?  When  they  need  to  work  for  daily 
bread,  how  can  they  stop  to  take  rest  enough  for  body 
and  mind  ? 

The  health  department  of  New  York  City  tries  to 
answer  these  questions  by  giving  help  to  citizens  who 
need  it.  Some  are  sent  to  pleasant  places  in  the  country, 
others  receive  fresh  eggs  and  milk  in  their  own  homes, 
and  still  others  are  cared  for  by  the  dispensaries  and  hos- 
pitals of  the  city.  At  the  same  time,  directions  are  sent 
out  by  the  hundred  thousand  printed  pages,  telling  citi- 
zens what  the  danger  is,  how  they  may  protect  them- 
selves from  it,  and  what  they  must  do  when  they  find 
that  they  have  the  disease. 

In  1902  New  York  doctors  reported  thirteen  thousand 
new  cases  of  tuberculosis,  and  in  1904,  by  adding  new 
cases  to  old  cases,  there  were  found  to  be  at  least  thirty 
thousand  consumptives  in  the  city. 

Since  this  is  so  many  more  than  the  health  department 
can  take  care  of,  each  separate  citizen  needs  to  know 
what  he  can  do  for  himself.  The  wisest  of  them  will  see 
to  it  that  windows  are  open  in  their  homes,  their  shops, 
and  their  schoolhouses.  They  will  keep  them  open  by 


208  TOWN   AND   CITY 

night  as  well  as  by  day,  for  they  will  know  that  less 
dust  is  being  stirred  up  at  night  and  that  night  air  is, 
therefore,  the  best  air  to  be  had. 

At  the  same  time,  they  will  make  sure  that  their 
bodies  are  warmly  covered  when  they  sleep  in  cold  rooms 
full  of  fresh  air.  A  quick,  inexpensive  way  to  get  extra 
covering  is  to  sew  newspapers  between  blankets.  Paper 
does,  in  fact,  keep  cold  out  so  well  that  in  some  places 
paper  blankets  are  manufactured,  and  they  can  be  bought 
by  the  dozen  for  very  little  money.  Keeping  warm 
enough  and  breathing  fresh  air  must  go  hand  in  hand. 

In  a  city  even  hospitals  have  trouble  in  giving  a  man 
all  the  air  he  needs.  Windows  are  kept  open  and  reclin- 
ing chairs  are  put  on  the  roof  for  certain  patients  to  use. 
Other  patients  breathe  fresh  air  even  in  bed,  for  the  cot 
itself,  with  the  man  on  it,  is  thrust  through  an  open  win- 
dow into  the  air  and  sunshine.  Other  devices  help,  but 
a  sanatorium  or  a  tent  in  the  country  is  best  of  all. 

The  United  States  and  Canada  have  thirty-eight  such 
places,  distributed  in  every  climate  from  Maine  to  Florida 
and  Hawaii.  Some  are  called  hospitals,  others  sanatoria, 
and  still  others  tent  colonies,  and  it  is  these  last  that 
give  the  most  air  and  the  most  hope.  Doctors  recom- 
mend them,  saying  that  if  ten  hours  of  fresh  air  are  a 
help,  twenty-four  hours  will  help  still  more. 

Some  consumptives  go  even  farther  than  tents  and 
actually  sleep  out  of  doors  in  midwinter. 


WAR  AGAINST  TUBERCULOSIS  209 

Mr.  Irving  Fisher  says  that  he  did  this  when  the  tem- 
perature was  ten  degrees  below  zero.  He  also  says  that 
in  the  winter  of  1904,  in  the  Adirondack  Cottage  Sana- 
torium, six  people  slept  outdoors  when  the  temperature 
was  thirty  degrees  below  zero.  They  had  two  or  three 
mattresses  under  them,  warm  blankets  and  comforters 


FRESH  AIR  IN  A  CITY 


over  them,  heavy  night  clothes  about  them,  and  also 
woolen  "  head  gear  "  with  an  opening  for  the  nose. 

Each  person  knew  that  the  more  fresh  air  he  could 
get  the  more  chance  he  had  to  live.  It  even  seemed  as 
if  the  colder  the  air  the  better  he  felt. 

Thus  the*  war  against  tuberculosis  goes  successfully 
on,  and  all  good  citizens  are  turning  into  energetic 
fighters  in  the  army. 


2IO 


TOWN   AND   CITY 


A  few  years  ago  no  one  protested  when  a  man  left 
his  saliva  on  the  sidewalk  or  floor  of  a  car  or  station.  It 
was  so  common  that  almost  no  one  noticed  the  spitting. 
Now,  however,  the  man  who  spits  is  seen  by  a  dozen 
different  people  at  once,  and  each  one  looks  upon  him  as 
either  a  deserter  from  the  camp  of  good  citizens  or  as  a 
friend  of  the  enemy. 


A  TENT  COLONY 
Air  and  sunshine  to  cure  consumption 

For  his  own  sake,  therefore,  as  well  as  for  the  sake  of 
his  city,  each  loyal  citizen  should  practice  the  following 
rules  of  prevention.  By  so  doing  he  will  prove  his  loyalty. 

1.  Never  spit  in  a  place  where  sputum  may 
dry  and  get  into  the  air. 

2.  Use  paper  or  cloth  and  burn  the  sputum 
before  it  dries,  or  else  use  a  spittoon  that 
has  water  in  it  to  prevent  the  microbes  from 
drying  and  floating  around  in  the  air.    Such 
spittoons  should  be  properly  cleaned. 


WAR  AGAINST  TUBERCULOSIS  21 1 

3.  If  there  is  a  persistent  cough  and  a  good 
deal  of  sputum,  tell  the  doctor  about  it.    He 
will  have  the  sputum  examined. 

4.  Obey  the  laws  of  health,  that  is,  breathe 
deeply,   have   plenty    of    air   and    sunshine, 
wholesome  food  and  sleep,  be  clean,  exercise 
faithfully,  and  be  careful  not  to  take  cold. 

Consumptives  who  follow  these  rules  are  not  in  danger 
of  giving  the  disease  to  others.  They  may  live  under  the 
same  roof  with  them,  work  side  by  side  at  the  same  bench, 
breathe  the  same  air  from  day  to  day,  and  yet,  from  first 
to  last,  if  they  destroy  every  drop  of  their  sputum,  other 
people  are  not  in  danger.  As  tubercle  bacilli  never  fly 
away  from  a  damp  surface,  they  stay  in  the  throat  and 
air  tubes  of  a  consumptive  and  do  not  get  into  his  breath 
unless  he  breathes  hard  or  sneezes.  If  he  does  either  of 
those  things,  he  should  hold  a  cloth  before  his  mouth 
and  burn  it  immediately,  or  have  it  boiled. 

Any  citizen  with  a  vigorous  body  is  best  able  to  resist 
every  sort  of  disease  microbe.  To  secure  this  body,  let 
each  of  us  learn  to  shun  what  have  been  called  the  five 
tuberculosis  D's,  —  dirt,  darkness,  dampness,  dust,  and 
drink.  Let  us  also  practice  the  golden  rule  of  the  anti- 
tuberculosis  leagues : 

Don't  give  consumption  to  others. 

Don't  let  others  give  consumption  to  you. 

In  this  great  anti-tuberculosis  war  cities  are  sure  to  be 
victorious  in  the  end,  but  how  soon  the  end  will  come 


212  TOWN  AND   CITY 

depends  on  whether  the  children  of  our  cities  under- 
stand how  serious  the  danger  is,  and  whether  they  are 
ready  to  help  fight  it. 

Since  this  book  was  written  the  Maryland  Association 
for  the  Prevention  and  Relief  of  Tuberculosis  has  been 
through  an  exciting  campaign.  Its  rally  call  was,  "  Will 
you  help  build  the  fence  ?  "  And  for  twenty-three  days 
this  mystic  query  appeared  in  large  letters  on  every 

street  car  in  Baltimore,  and 
on  nearly  every  blank  wall ; 
even  the  ash  cans  did  not 
escape.  At  first  there  was 
curiosity  on  the  part  of 


WILL  YOU 

HELP 

BUILD  THE 
FENCE 


those  who  saw  the  sign ;  next  came  interest ;  and  when 
the  meaning  of  the  question  slipped  out,  when  all  knew 
that  it  meant  a  "  fence  "  of  prevention  to  protect  citizens 
against  consumption,  there  was  such  enthusiasm  that,  in 
less  than  three  weeks,  ten  thousand  dollars  were  raised 
for  the  use  of  the  Association  during  1907. 

Such  an  experience  as  this  shows  one  of  the  ways  in 
which  cities  north  and  south,  east  and  west,  are  already 
preparing  to  attack  the  enemy.  It  also  proves  that  we 
have  reason  to  expect  to  be  successful  in  our  united 
warfare  against  tuberculosis. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

CITY   HEALTH    AND   ALCOHOL 

An  intelligent  American  trained  nurse  was  speaking 
of  her  work  in  Cuba  during  the  Spanish-American  War. 
She  said : 

Yes,  I  was  there  three  months.  I  spent  my  whole  time  taking  care 
of  typhoid  patients,  and  I  saw  what  alcohol  did  for  the  poor  fellows. 
I  remember  three  cases  in  one  week.  They  were  all  soldiers,  they  all 
had  typhoid  fever,  and  they  all  had  to  be  operated  upon. 

The  first  was  a  fine  young  fellow  twenty-five  years  old,  who  had 
never  smoked  or  used  alcohol.  He  was  so  near  dying  that  it  hardly 
seemed  as  if  we  could  get  him  to  the  operating  table  alive.  Still  the 
doctors  tried  it  as  a  last  chance,  and  sure  enough,  he  began  to  get  well 
almost  as  soon  as  the  operation  was  over.  The  second  was  in  the  habit 
of  drinking  whenever  he  had  a  chance.  The  third  drank  once  in  a 
while.  Neither  of  these  seemed  so  very  sick,  and  it  looked  as  if  they 
ought  to  recover.  Nevertheless,  the  drinker  died  the  day  after  the 
operation,  and  the  moderate  drinker  three  days  later. 

The  doctors  who  examined  the  bodies  said  that  in  both  cases 
the  heart  and  intestines  were  so  damaged  by  alcohol  that  it  would 
have  been  a  marvel  if  the  men  had  recovered.  You  see,  sometimes 
we  really  have  to  use  a  little  stimulant  to  pull  a  man  over  a  crisis, 
but  if  he  has  the  alcohol  habit,  a  little  won't  do  him  any  good,  and 
if  we  give  him  much,  he  is  so  weak  that  he  's  almost  sure  to  die 
from  it. 

213 


214  TOWN  AND  CITY 

"  What  do  you  do  then  ?  "  we  asked. 

"  Nothing,"  she  answered.  "  There 's  really  nothing 
we  can  do;  we  have  to  let  him  die." 

This  seems  bad  enough  and  sad  enough,  but  in  such 
an  important  matter  as  this  no  one  should  depend  upon 
the  judgment  of  any  one  person.  Fortunately  for  us, 
scientists  have  looked  into  the  subject  of  alcohol  and 
health  most  carefully. 

Professor  Guttstadt  of  Berlin  has  studied  the  record 
of  the  Gotha  Life  Insurance  Company,  and  the  Prussian 
government  has  published  these  records  in  the  Klinishen 
Jahrbuch  for  1904.  It  seems  that  Professor  Guttstadt 
looked  up  the  causes  of  death  of  men  over  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  and  he  learned  that  in  Prussia  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-one  people  out  of  every  thousand  die  of 
tuberculosis. 

He  then  wanted  to  know  in  which  occupation  there 
was  the  greatest  number  of  deaths  from  tuberculosis. 
So  he  compared  again,  and  found  that: 

Of  every  1000  bartenders        who  die,  556  have  tuberculosis 

"        "           "  brewers               "        "  345  "             " 

"        "           "  school-teachers"        "  143  "             " 

"        "           "  physicians          "        "  113  "             " 

«       "           »  clergymen          "        "  76  "             " 

The  explanation  of  the  death  rate  is  plain  enough. 
People  expectorate  more  in  saloons  than  anywhere  else, 
and  just  there,  too,  they  are  specially  careless  as  to  where 


CITY  HEALTH  AND  ALCOHOL  215 

the  saliva  goes.  Sometimes  it  gets  into  a  receptacle  that 
may  tip  over  afterwards.  Sometimes  the  half-intoxicated 
man  cannot  see  straight  enough  to  use  any  receptacle  at 
all,  and  therefore  uses  the  floor  instead.  In  any  case,  no 
matter  how  it  gets  there,  saliva  on  the  floor,  getting  dry, 
being  stepped  on,  turning  to  powder,  floating  into  the 
air  with  tuberculosis  microbes  in  it,  is  a  danger  to  all 
who  breathe  in  the  room,  and  to  bartenders  most  of  all, 
because  they  stay  there  longest. 

Yet  air  is  not  the  only  carrier  of  disease.  In  most 
saloons  the  glasses,  instead  of  being  scalded  after  each 
drinker,  are  simply  rinsed  in  cold  water,  and  microbes 
from  the  lips  that  have  just  used  the  glass  are  not  killed 
before  the  next  man  puts  the  same  glass  to  his  lips. 
Many  diseases  travel  in  this  way  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
but,  not  suspecting  it,  people  drink  on  most  carelessly. 

Between  1847  and  1849  a  great  cholera  epidemic  in 
Glasgow  attracted  so  much  attention  that  Professor 
Adams  studied  it  carefully  for  the  sake  of  telling  the 
people  how  to  protect  themselves.  He  discovered  that 
of  those  who  used  alcohol  and  caught  cholera  ninety-one 
out  of  every  hundred  died,  and  of  those  who  did  not 
use  alcohol  and  had  cholera  nineteen  out  of  every 
hundred  died. 

He  also  noticed  that  during  the  epidemic  most  of  the 
new  cases  came  after  a  holiday  or  Sunday,  when  people 
had  been  doing  special  drinking,  and  from  what  he  saw, 


2i6  TOWN  AND  CITY 

he  was  so  sure  about  the  share  which  alcohol  had  in 
spreading  the  disease  that  he  said  the  sign  over  every 
saloon  ought  to  be,  "  Cholera  for  sale  here." 

Dr.  Thomas,  in  Strassburg,  was  so  much  interested  in 
the  same  subject  that,  having  no  epidemic  to  follow,  he  ex- 
perimented on  rabbits  with  alcohol  and  cholera  microbes. 
In  doing  this  he  found  that  when  the  little  creatures  had 
been  dosed  with  alcohol  six  times  as  many  of  them  died 
as  when  they  had  not  had  the  alcohol.  From  many 
different  experiments  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
even  a  small  quantity  of  alcohol  affects  the  blood  in 
such  a  way  that  it  loses  its  power  to  destroy  disease 
microbes. 

This  seems  to  be  the  case  even  with  people  who  take 
beer. 

Toledo,  Ohio,  is  one  of  the  principal  beer  cities  of 
America,  and  various  people  there  are  making  thousands 
of  dollars  every  year  by  selling  beer  to  their  countrymen, 
as  well  as  to  Germans  who  have  moved  to  the  city.  A 
newspaper  called  the  Toledo  Blade  is  bent  on  learning 
exact  facts.  Therefore,  instead  of  asking  those  who 
drank  beer  what  they  thought  of  it,  the  Blade  sent  an 
intelligent  man  around  to  ask  the  best  doctors  of  the 
place  whether  beer  did  any  harm  to  their  patients.  One 
after  the  other  gave  the  same  answer. 

Dr.  S.  H.  Burgen,  who  has  been  practicing  in  Toledo 
for  twenty-eight  years,  said : 


CITY  HEALTH  AND  ALCOHOL  217 

I  think  beer  kills  quicker  than  any  other  liquor.  My  attention 
was  first  called  to  its  insidious  effects  when  I  began  examining  for 
life  insurance.  I  passed,  as  unusually  good  risks,  five  Germans,  young 
business  men,  who  seemed  in  the  best  health  and  to  have  superb  con- 
stitutions. In  a  few  years  I  was  amazed  to  see  the  whole  five  drop 
off,  one  after  the  other,  with  what  ought  to  have  been  mild  and  easily 
curable  diseases.  On  comparing  my  experience  with  that  of  other 
physicians  I  found  that  they  were  all  having  similar  luck  with  con- 
firmed beer  drinkers,  and  my  practice  since  has  heaped  confirmation 
on  confirmation. 

As  for  those  who  need  operations  he  said :  "  Beer 
drinkers  are  absolutely  the  most  dangerous  class  of  sub- 
jects a  surgeon  can  operate  on.  All  surgeons  hesitate  to 
perform  an  operation  on  a  beer  drinker." 

Dr.  C.  A.  Kirkley  said,  "  Sickness  is  always  more  fatal 
in  beer  drinkers,  and  accidents  are  usually  fatal  to  them." 

Dr.  S.  S.  Thorne  said : 

If  you  could  drop  into  a  little  circle  of  doctors  when  they  are  having 
a  quiet,  professional  chat,  you  would  hear  enough  in  a  few  minutes  to 
terrify  you  as  to  the  work  of  beer.  One  will  say,  "  What 's  become 
of  So  and  So?  I  have  n't  seen  him  around  lately."  "  Oh,  he  's  dead." 
"  Dead  !  What  was  the  matter?  "  "  Beer,"  comes  the  answer.  Another 
will  say :  "I  've  just  come  from  Blank's.  I  am  afraid  it  is  about  my 
last  call  on  him,  poor  fellow."  "What's  the  trouble?"  "Oh,  he's 
been  a  regular  beer  drinker  for  years."  And  so  on,  till  half  a  dozen 
physicians  have  mentioned  fifty  recent  cases  where  apparently  strong, 
hearty  men,  at  a  time  of  life  when  they  should  be  in  their  prime,  have 
suddenly  dropped  into  the  grave.  To  say  they  are  habitual  beer 
drinkers  is  sufficient  explanation  to  any  physician. 


2i8  TOWN  AND  CITY 

So  in  Toledo  many  doctors  said  the  same  thing.  But 
there  are  other  cities  and  other  drinks.  Dr.  Willard 
Parker,  one  of  the  most  noted  physicians  of  New  York, 
once  said,  "  One  third  of  all  the  deaths  in  New  York  City 
are  caused,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  alcoholic  drinks." 

Sir  Andrew  Clark,  a  famous  London  doctor,  put  the 
figure  higher  yet. 

I  'm  speaking  solemnly  and  carefully  in  the  presence  of  truth,  and  I 
tell  you  I  am  considerably  within  the  mark  when  I  say  to  you  that, 
going  the  round  of  my  hospitals  to-day,  seven  out  of  every  ten  there 
owed  their  ill  health  to  alcohol.  Now  what  does  that  mean?  That 
out  of  every  hundred  patients  whom  I  have  charge  of  at  the  London 
Hospital  seventy  of  them  directly  owe  their  ill  health  to  alcohol.  I  do 
not  know  that  one  of  them  was  a  drunkard. 

Still  all  this  is  about  the  effect  that  alcohol  has  on 
the  bodies  of  men.  But  one  and  all  agree  that  the  worst 
damage  is  to  the  mind  and  character.  They  say  that 
very  often  the  will  is  weakened  by  alcohol,  just  as  the 
muscles  are  weakened  by  fever.  In  fact,  the  more  alco- 
hol a  man  takes  the  weaker  his  will  grows,  while  the 
weaker  his  will  grows  the  more  alcohol  he  takes.  After 
that,  in  thousands  of  cases,  it  is  a  rapid  whirl  down  to 
destruction.  As  Professor  Atwater  says,  "Saddest  of  all 
is  the  effect  upon  the  mental  functions:  the  weakening 
of  the  will  and  the  deadening  of  the  moral  sensibilities, 
the  ruin  of  character  which  is  wrought  by  alcohol  as 
a  drug." 


CITY  HEALTH  AND  ALCOHOL  219 

As  far  as  families  and  cities  are  concerned  the  most 
serious  thing  about  alcohol  is  that  the  drinker  who  goes 
to  destruction  because  of  it  does  not  go  alone.  He  usually 
drags  others  along  with  him,  and  his  dearest  friends 
suffer  most. 

A  certain  beer-selling  society  in  England  had  been 
objecting  to  something  that  Mr.  Justice  Grantham  said 
about  alcohol,  whereupon  he  stated  the  case  more  posi- 
tively than  ever,  showing  just  how  it  is  that  innocent 
people  suffer. 

I  have  lately  been  brought  face  to  face  for  weeks  with  the  conduct 
of  publicans  (saloon  keepers)  in  the  carrying  on  of  their  business,  which 
has  resulted  in  the  most  heart-breaking  crimes  it  is  possible  to  imagine, 
—  husbands  murdering  their  wives,  wives  their  husbands,  fathers  their 
sons,  friends  their  own  best  friends,  all  through  the  maddening  influ- 
ence of  excessive  drinking.  Twelve  murders,  eighteen  attempts  at 
murder,  and  woundings  without  number  have  been  my  own  and  my 
brother  judge's  fare  for  the  last  four  weeks  on  one  circuit,  and  in  almost 
every  case  drink  was  the  cause. 

But,  in  addition  to  all  this,  the  children  of  these  unfor- 
tunates suffer  just  as  the  children  of  Bum  and  Tipsy 
suffered. 

Professor  Demme,  of  Stuttgart,  studied  the  history  of 
ten  families  of  drunkards  and  ten  temperance  families 
for  ten  years,  and  then  printed  the  results.  He  took 
notes  about  those  human  children  just  as  carefully  as 
Dr.  Hodge  took  notes  about  the  puppies. 


220  TOWN  AND  CITY 

The  following  is  a  table  which  shows  some  of  the 
things  he  learned  about  them. 


Drunkards'  Temperance 

Families  Families 


Number  of  children 

try 

61 

Died  before  six  weeks  old  . 

2C 

Idiots 

6 

o 

Stunted  in  growth      .          ... 

c 

o 

KoileDsv 

c 

o 

Nervous  in  childhood,  but  cured 

0 

6 

Ordinary  good  health  in  childhood  . 

.  17.5% 

81.5% 

Study  these  two  columns  carefully,  and  notice  the 
number  of  idiots.  Massachusetts  tried  to  account  for 
the  number  of  idiots  in  the  state  and  appointed  a 
committee  of  investigation  with  Dr.  Howe  as  chairman. 
He  looked  up  the  history  of  three  hundred  of  these 
unfortunate  children,  and  found  that  one  hundred  and 
forty-five  of  them  had  intemperate  fathers  and  mothers. 

Evidently  children  are  apt  to  suffer  quite  as  much 
as  their  parents  in  this  matter.  The  truth  is  that  the 
scientific  facts  about  the  effects  of  alcohol  are  not  under- 
stood widely  enough.  No  intelligent  person  will  risk  his 
health  if  he  knows  he  is  risking  it.  Definite  study, 
therefore,  in  this  direction  is  so  important  that  in  Eng- 
land, in  1905,  fifteen  thousand  doctors  signed  a  peti- 
tion asking  their  government  to  teach  the  facts  about 
alcohol  to  English  school  children  as  they  are  taught 
in  America. 


CHAPTER   XXVII 

LITTLE   TURTLE,   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN,   AND   THE 
LINCOLN   LEGION 

One  hundred  years  ago  Little  Turtle  was  a  famous 
Indian  chief  and  warrior.  He  was  also  one  of  the 
Indians  who  signed  the  treaty  of  Greenville  in  1795. 
And  this  treaty  was  supposed  to  join  the  red  men  to  the 
white  men  in  a  peaceful  bond. 

No  doubt  the  white  settlers  of  the  country  were 
anxious  to  help  their  Indian  fellow-countrymen,  for  in 
1801  the  Committee  on  Indians  invited  Little  Turtle 
to  go  to  Baltimore  and  tell  them  how  they  could  be  most 
useful  to  him  and  to  his  people.  Now  since  the  man 
was  a  full-blooded  Indian  and  a  fighter,  and  since  he  was 
spokesman  for  his  fellow  red  men,  who  were  also  fighters 
and  hunters,  perhaps  the  committee  expected  him  to  ask 
for  guns  and  powder,  for  blankets,  beads,  and  tobacco. 
If  so,  his  speech  must  have  made  them  hold  their  breath 
and  look  at  each  other  with  surprise;  for,  instead,  he 
begged  them  to  save  his  people  from  the  curse  of  the 
white  man's  alcohol.  He  spoke  in  the  Indian  language 
and  every  sentence  had  to  be  translated.  Yet  the  mean- 
ing was  plain  and  every  one  listened  as  he  spoke. 


221 


222  TOWN  AND  CITY 

Brothers  and  friends,  it  is  this  liquor  that  causes  our  young  men  to 
go  without  clothes,  our  women  and  children  to  go  without  anything  to 
eat,  and  sorry  am  I  to  mention  to  you,  brothors,  that  the  evil  is  increas- 
ing every  day.  Brothers,  when  our  young  men  have  been  out  hunting, 
and  are  returning  home  loaded  with  skins  and  furs,  on  their  way  if  they 
come  along  where  some  of  this  whisky  is  deposited,  the  white  man 
who  sells  it  tells  them  to  take  a  little  and  drink.  Some  will  then  say, 
"  No,  I  do  not  want  it."  They  go  until  they  come  to  another  house, 
where  they  find  more  of  the  same  kind  of  drink.  It  is  there  again 
offered.  They  refuse  again  the  second  time,  but  finally,  the  fourth  or 
fifth  time,  one  accepts  it  and  takes  a  drink,  and,  getting  one,  he  wants 
another,  and  then  a  third  and  fourth,  till  his  senses  have  left  him.  After 
his  reason  comes  back  again  to  him  he  gets  up  and  finds  where  he  is. 
He  asks  for  his  peltry.  The  answer  is,  "You  have  drunk  them." 
"  Where  is  my  gun?  "  "  It  is  gone."  "  Where  is  my  blanket?  "  "  It  is 
gone."  "W7here  is  my  shirt?"  "You  have  sold  it  for  whisky."  Now, 
brothers,  figure  to  yourself  what  a  condition  this  man  must  be  in ; 
he  has  a  family  at  home,  a  wife  and  children  that  stand  in  need  of  the 
profits  of  his  hunting. 

This,  brothers,  I  can  assure  you  is  a  fact  that  often  happens  amongst 
us.  As  1  have  before  observed,  we  have  no  means  to  prevent  it.  ... 
It  is  not  an  evil,  brothers,  of  our  own  making ;  we  have  not  placed  it 
among  ourselves.  It  is  an  evil  placed  amongst  us  by  the  white  people ; 
we  look  up  to  them  to  remove  it  out  of  our  country.  Our  repeated 
entreaties  to  those  who  brought  this  evil  amongst  us,  we  find,  have  not 
the  desired  effect.  We  tell  them,  brothers,  to  fetch  us  useful  things, 
bring  goods  that  will  clothe  our  women  and  children,  and  not  this  evil 
liquor  that  destroys  our  reason,  that  destroys  our  health,  that  destroys 
our  lives.  But  all  we  can  say  on  this  subject  is  of  no  service,  nor  gives 
relief  to  your  red  brethren.  Our  young  men  say  :  "  We  had  better  be  at 
war  with  the  white  people.  This  liquor  they  introduce  into  our  country 


THE  INDIANS  AND  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  223 

is  more  to  be  feared  than  the  gun  and  tomahawk ;  there  are  more  of  us 
dead  since  the  treaty  of  Greenville  than  we  lost  by  the  six  years'  war 
before.  It  is  all  owing  to  tbe'  introduction  of  this  liquor  amongst  us." 

Brothers  and  friends,  since  the  introduction  amongst  us  of  what  you 
call  spirituous  liquors,  and  what  we  think  may  justly  be  called  poison, 
our  numbers  have  greatly  diminished.  It  has  destroyed  a  great  part  of 
your  red  brethren. 

These  are  a  few  sentences  from  the  red  man's  great  tem- 
perance address,  and  the  committee  who  listened  were  so 
much  impressed  by  it  that  they  sent  a  copy  to  Congress 
and  asked  the  senators  to  grant  Little  Turtle's  petition. 
The  government  printed  the  speech,  and  to-day  it  is 
stored  away  in  the  Congressional  Library  in  Washington. 

No  doubt  it  influenced  the  government  at  the  time 
and  helped  the  Indian;  for  after  that,  when  the  United 
States  made  treaties  with  the  Five  Civilized  Tribes,  they 
pledged  the  Indian  that  no  white  man  should  be  allowed 
to  sell  intoxicating  liquor  in  Indian  Territory.  And 
when,  years  later,  the  Indian  tribes  finally  agreed  to  give 
up  their  own  government  and  allow  white  men  to  live 
with  them  as  citizens  of  Indian  Territory,  the  one  con- 
dition that  they  insisted  on  was  that  liquor  should  not 
come  in  at  the  same  time.  They  were  so  earnest  about  it 
that  our  government  gave  them  the  following  promise. 

The  United  States  agrees  to  maintain  strict  laws  in  the  territory  of 
said  nation  against  the  introduction,  sale,  barter,  or  giving  away  of 
liquors  and  intoxicants  of  any  kind  or  quality. 


224  TOWN  AND  CITY 

But  Indians  were  not  the  only  ones  who  were  bright 
enough  to  try  to  save  themselves  from  alcohol  years 
ago.  Abraham  Lincoln  lived  and  talked  fifty  years  later, 
but  he  was  just  as  much  in  earnest  as  Little  Turtle,  and 
he  influenced  small  boys  as  well  as  statesmen. 

Mr.  Cleopas  Breckenridge,  of  Springfield,  Illinois,  was 
a  boy  at  that  time.  He  says  that  one  day  in  1846  there 
was  to  be  a  temperance  meeting  near  the  new  South  Fork 
schoolhouse,  not  far  from  his  home.  The  speaker  was  a 
vigorous  young  lawyer  from  Springfield,  and  for  miles 
around  the  people  wanted  to  hear  him.  So  those  who  had 
horses  and  wagons  hitched  them  up  for  service.  They 
walked  or  they  drove,  according  as  they  were  able ;  and 
when  they  reached  the  appointed  place  they  sat  around 
on  logs  and  boughs  left  over  from  the  building  of  the 
schoolhouse,  and  listened  to  what  the  young  man  had  to 
say.  Evidently  he  was  desperately  in  earnest,  for  he  did 
not  once  suggest  that  they  should  be  careful  not  to  drink 
too  much  when  they  used  liquor.  Instead,  he  told  them 
that  the  only  safe  way  was  to  stop  off  short,  to  sign  the 
pledge,  and  never  to  drink  again. 

He  was  such  a  good  lawyer  that  he  convinced  his 
hearers  with  sound  arguments.  They  agreed  with  him, 
and  when  he  had  finished  speaking  he  said,  "  I  have 
here  a  pledge  which  I  have  written  and  signed  myself, 
and  am  asking  my  neighbors,  so  far  as  they  are  willing 
to  do  so,  to  sign  it  with  me."  Naturally  enough,  since 


THE  INDIANS  AND  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  225 

they  were  already  convinced,  many  in  the  audience  were 
glad  to  sign  it. 

Mr.  Breckenridge  was  a  small  boy  at  the  time,  but  he 
remembers  the  day  perfectly,  and  he  says : 

The  first  thing  I  knew  the  speaker  was  standing  right  in  front  of  me. 
As  I  looked  up  into  his  face  he  said,  "  Sonny,  don't  you  want  your 
name  on  this  pledge?  "  I  answered,  "Yes,  sir."  He  said,  "You  know 
what  it  means  —  that  you  are  not  to  drink  intoxicating  liquor  as  a 
beverage?"  I  answered,  "Yes,  sir,  I  know  what  it  means."  He  then 
signed  my  name  upon  the  pledge,  knowing  that  a  boy  of  my  age  in  those 
days  could  not  write  his  own  name.  And  then,  reaching  down,  he  laid 
his  hand  upon  my  head  and  said,  "  Now,  sonny,  you  keep  that  pledge, 
and  it  will  be  the  best  act  of  your  life." 

Here  is  the  pledge  as  Abraham  Lincoln  wrote  it. 

Whereas,  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors  as  a  beverage  is  productive  of 
pauperism,  degradation  and  crime,  and  believing  it  is  our  duty  to  dis- 
courage that  which  produces  more  evil  than  good,  we  therefore  pledge 
ourselves  to  abstain  from  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  as  a  beverage. 

As  Abraham  Lincoln  grew  older,  and  while  he  was 
President  of  the  United  States,  he  was  still  true  to  what 
he  believed,  and  he  was  always  brave  enough  to  say 
what  he  thought.  He  said: 

Good  citizenship  demands  and  requires  that  what  is  right  should  not 
only  be  made  known  but  be  made  prevalent ;  that  what  is  evil  should  not 
only  be  detected  and  defeated,  but  destroyed.  The  saloon  has  proved 
itself  to  be  the  greatest  foe,  the  most  blighting  curse,  of  our  modern 
civilization,  and  this  is  the  reason  why  I  am  a  practical  prohibitionist. 


226  TOWN  AND  CITY 

With  such  a  record  as  this  it  is  not  strange  that  to-day 
Lincoln  is  chosen  as  the  great  leader  of  the  Lincoln 
Legion.  The  pledge  they  use  is  the  pledge  he  wrote ; 
and  with  his  pledge  to  give  them  courage,  and  his  name 
to  inspire  them,  no  wonder  the  first  small  legion  has 
already  become  legions  and  legions  strong. 

It  was  started  in  Oberlin,  Ohio,  on  the  2ist  of  October, 
1903,  and  it  seemed  to  pick  up  the  temperance  subject 
where  Lincoln  left  it  off  in  1 846  ;  for  Cleopas  Brecken- 
ridge  and  Moses  Martin,  his  friend,  had  come  from  the 
schoolhouse  meeting  to  this  one.  To  be  sure,  fifty-seven 
years  had  slipped  in  between  the  two  meetings,  and  these 
gray-haired  men  who  came  to  town  now  were  ten-year- 
old  boys  when  they  listened  to  Abraham  Lincoln  at  the 
log  schoolhouse.  Still  they  had  kept  his  pledge  faith- 
fully, and  now  they  recited  it  again;  and  when  it  was 
written  down  and  passed  around  for  names  they  were 
allowed  to  sign  it  first,  which  made  them  the  first  mem- 
bers of  the  Lincoln  Legion. 

From  that  day  to  this  Lincoln's  name  has  seemed  to 
act  like  a  magnet,  for  the  numbers  ran  up  fast  from  tens 
to  hundreds,  from  hundreds  to  thousands,  in  all  parts  of 
the  country,  until,  during  one  year,  two  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  people  joined  the  Legion  and  signed 
the  pledge. 

The  plan  is  to  put  these  Lincolnites  into  groups  of 
tens,  hundreds,  and  thousands.  A  comrade,  as  he  is 


THE  INDIANS  AND  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  227 

called,  guides  each  ten,  while  each  hundred  and  each 
thousand  has  a  captain.  There  are  secretaries  for  each 
state  and  each  county,  and  the  officers  receive  hand- 
some papers  which  explain  their  commission. 

The  work  of  the  Legion  is  very  plain.  It  simply  car- 
ries on  what  Abraham  Lincoln  began,  and  proposes  to 
save  as  much  of  the  country  as  possible  from  alcohol. 
To  help  the  cause  along  each  legion  is  supposed  to  hold 
its  annual  meeting  on  Lincoln's  birthday,  —  an  honor- 
able memorial  of  him. 

Another  proposition  is  to  turn  our  Fourth  of  July  from 
a  day  of  great  carousing  into  the  sort  of  patriotic,  enthu- 
siastic, anti-alcohol  day  that  President  Lincoln  would 
have  liked  best. 

Lincoln's  own  Legion,  in  1846,  met  near  a  school- 
house;  the  next  one,  in  1903,  met  in  a  college  town; 
and  to-day  it  is  the  intelligent  school  children  all  over 
the  country  that  crowd  into  the  Lincoln  Legions  of  our 
towns  and  our  cities. 

When  one  is  to  be  started  the  best  way  is  to  write  to 
the  office  of  the  National  Committee,  no  East  I25th 
Street,  New  York  City,  and  ask  for  samples  of  cards  and 
badges,  with  printed  directions  that  explain  the  way  to 
go  to  work.  A  full  answer  will  come  by  return  mail. 

The  state  of  Iowa  has  a  pretty  stick-pin  badge  with 
the  face  of  Lincoln  pictured  on  it. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 
WHY  MOSQUITOES  SHOULD  GO 

There  is  so  much  malaria  on  the  Roman  Campagna 
that  during  part  of  each  year  the  business  of  having  it 
really  seems  to  be  the  occupation  of  the  people.  This 
is  not  strange,  for  to  this  day  most  of  the  inhabitants 
fail  to  protect  themselves  from  it.  They  believe  that 
malaria  is  a  queer  mixture  of  dampness  and  warmth; 
that  it  oozes  out  of  the  ground;  that  it  belongs  to  cer- 
tain places,  as  cold  belongs  to  the  north  pole  and  heat 
to  the  torrid  zone ;  and  that  no  one  who  breathes  it  can 
escape  it. 

In  1900  two  scientific  men  went  to  that  region  to 
prove  an  opposite  doctrine  which  a  few  other  scientists 
already  believed.  They  chose  the  most  malarial  spot 
in  the  entire  Campagna,  and  there  they  built  a  five- 
room  cottage.  It  stood  on  the  bank  of  a  canal  that 
swarmed  with  mosquito  wigglers  or  larvae,  but  every 
door  and  window  of  the  cottage  was  closely  screened 
to  keep  the  mosquitoes  out. 

These  facts  are  the  ones  to  notice,  for  they  are  the  very 
center  of  the  experiment.  When  sundown  came  the 

men  slipped  into  the  cottage  behind  the  screens,  lit  their 

228 


WHY  MOSQUITOES  SHOULD  GO 


229 


ANOPHELES  POINTED  FOR  BLOOD 


lamps,  and  watched  the  gathering  of  the  anopheles  mos- 
quitoes on  the  outside.  This  is  the  kind  of  mosquito 
that  lives  in  malarial  places,  and  it  seems  that  they 
generally  stay  in  hiding  by 
day.  After  dark,  however, 
they  stream  out  in  swarms 
and  start  off  on  splendid 
hunting  expeditions. 

So  now  they  came  to 
the  cottage,  perched  on  the 
screens,  and  peered  through  Three  times  as  large  as  life-  Malaria  may 

.   ,  -*  follow 

with  hungry  eyes.     1  hey 

longed  for  one  square  meal  of  human  blood,  but  the 
men  did  not  relent.  They  simply  went  off  to  bed  and 
left  them  there  lamenting.  It  was  easy  to  tell  which  the 
anopheles  were,  for,  in  standing,  the  end  of  the  body 
generally  points  upward  and  away  from  the  surface 
,  on  which  they  stand,  while  the  legs 
do  not  curl  upward,  although  they 
sometimes  stretch  straight  out  be- 
hind. With  the  culex,  however, — 
the  mosquito  that  sings  and  stings 
harmlessly  in  every  land,  —  the  end 
of  the  body  points  downward  when  he  stands,  and  his 
legs  curl  upward. 

When  the  malarial   season  of  summer  and  fall  was 
over   the    two   men   had   escaped   both  anopheles   and 


CURVED-LEGGED  CULEX 

Three  times  as  large  as 
life 


230  TOWN  AND  CITY 

malaria.  They  had  left  their  windows  wide  open,  and 
had  breathed  the  air  of  that  malarial  region  every  day 
and  every  night ;  yet  they  were  as  well  at  the  end  as  at 
the  beginning  of  their  experiment.  The  news  about  it 
was  telegraphed  to  all  corners  of  the  earth,  and  scientific 
men  in  every  land  knew  at  once  that  henceforward 
anopheles  mosquitoes  and  human  beings  must  stop 
living  in  the  same  houses. 

Soon  after  came  another  experiment  proving  the  case 
from  the  opposite  side  of  the  question. 

Several  anopheles  in  Rome  were  allowed  to  have  a 
glorious  feast  on  the  blood  of  a  man  who  had  malaria. 
They  were  then  shipped  off  to  London,  where  a  coura- 
geous man  offered  his  body  for  the  experiment.  He 
had  never  had  malaria ;  had  never  even  lived  in  a  mala- 
rial country,  and  the  question  was  whether  those  Roman 
anopheles  could  actually  bring  the  disease  from  Italy  and 
prick  it  into  a  Londoner. 

They  were  hungry  when  they  arrived,  took  hold  in 
earnest,  and  sucked  all  the  blood  they  wanted.  After 
that,  sure  enough,  came  the  proof.  The  man  became  ill 
with  malaria. 

Microscopes  have  been  used  so  faithfully  since  those 
days  that  scientists  now  know  precisely  how  it  is  that 
anopheles  can  both  rob  a  man  of  his  blood  and  give 
him  malaria  at  the  same  time.  The  mystery  is  with  the 
microbe  that  spends  part  of  its  life  in  the  stomach  of 


WHY  MOSQUITOES  SHOULD  GO  231 

the  anopheles  and  the  rest  of  it  in  the  blood  of  man. 
It  grows  in  both  places,  and  would  actually  amount  to 
nothing  if  it  had  to  spend  all  its  life  in  either  place 
without  going  to  the  other. 

Curiously  enough,  these  malaria  microbes  are  so  fas- 
tidious that  the  body  of  no  other  kind  of  mosquito 
pleases  them.  They  must  live  in  the  anopheles  or 
nowhere. 

More  than  that,  the  female  alone  gets  the  microbe, 
for  she  alone  has  a  beak  strong  enough  to  puncture 
the  human  skin.  As  she  draws  blood  from  the  little 
wound  she  has  made,  it  always  happens  that,  quite  with- 
out any  thought  of  harm,  she  lets  some  of  her  saliva 
drip  into  it,  and  just  there  are  the  microbes.  They  now 
dart  into  the  red  corpuscles  of  the  blood,  live  there  and 
grow  large,  divide  into  several  parts,  and  end  by  burst- 
ing numberless  corpuscles  into  fragments.  When  this 
happens  the  body  that  owns  those  corpuscles  has  a 
chill,  and  the  doctor  says :  "  Poor  man !  he  has  caught 
malaria  somehow ;  we  '11  have  to  dose  him  with  quinine." 
It  appears  that  quinine  is  sure  to  kill  these  special 
microbes. 

After  the  new  microbes  have  broken  through  the 
first  red  corpuscles  they  take  up  lodgings  in  others. 
At  this  point,  therefore,  the  fever  is  well  under  way. 
Any  anopheles  mosquitoes  sucking  blood  now  will  take 
malarial  microbes  into  their  stomachs  with  the  blood 


232  TOWN  AND  CITY 

and  will  pass  them  on  to  the  next  man  they  bite.    From 
this  history  five  things  are  clear: 

1.  Malaria   is    carried   by   the    anopheles 
mosquitoes. 

2.  Anopheles  carry  no  disease  until  they 
have  sucked  malarial  blood. 

3.  No  other  kind  of  mosquito  carries  the 
disease. 

4.  If   anopheles   were  banished   from   the 
earth,  there  would  never  be  another  case  of 
malaria. 

5.  Until    mosquitoes    of    every    sort    are 
banished,    men    must    be    protected    from 
them. 

Unfortunately  for  the  harmless  culex,  he  and  the 
harmful  anopheles  multiply  in  the  same  ponds,  visit  the 
same  houses,  sing  the  same  song,  —  though  the  anopheles 
has  a  lower  voice,  —  and  puncture  the  same  men.  They 
must  therefore  be  killed  or  banished  together,  for  there 
is  no  separating  the  one  kind  from  the  other. 

Still  another  mosquito  is  yet  more  cruel  than  the 
anopheles.  His  name  is  stegomyia,  and  for  many  gen- 
erations in  Havana,  Cuba,  he  carried  on  his  terrible 
traffic  in  yellow  fever  without  raising  a  suspicion. 

This  fever  was  as  common  in  Havana  as  malaria  is 
in  Rome.  It  was  also  deadly  and  swift  in  the  way  it 
worked,  and,  from  doctors  down  to  children,  every  one 


WHY  MOSQUITOES  SHOULD  GO 


233 


counted  it  contagious.  They  treated  it  as  smallpox  is 
treated ;  that  is,  healthy  people  fled  from  it,  while  those 
who  had  to  stay  dared  touch  nothing  that  belonged  to  a 
victim  of  it 

In  those  days,  when  Havana  suffered  most,  every  city 
in  America  that  received  fruit  and  merchandise  from 
Cuba  had  a  panic  lest 
the  fever  should  ar- 
rive with  the  cargo. 

Now,  however, 
there  is  a  change. 

Some  one  noticed 
that  yellow  fever  and 
mosquitoes  seemed 
to  come  and  go  to- 
gether, even  as  mos- 
quitoes and  malaria 
go  hand  in  hand. 
Later  certain  scien- 
tific men  became  so 
sure  of  this  that  they  dared  to  undertake  a  famous 
experiment. 

At  Camp  Lazear,  one  mile  from  the  town  of  Que- 
mados,  Cuba,  they  built  a  small  frame  house,  and  for 
sixty-three  days  seven  men  took  turns  living  there. 
They  occupied  the  place  two  at  a  time,  each  couple 
staying  about  twenty  days  on  a  stretch.  Here,  as  on 


STEGOMYIA  READY 
TO  CARRY  YELLOW 
FEVER 

Greatly  magnified 


234  TOWN  AND  CITY 

the  Roman  Campagna,  the  house  was  so  thoroughly 
screened  that  no  mosquitoes,  however  slim  or  sly,  could 
by  any  chance  squeeze  in. 

Do  not  for  a  moment  forget  that  at  that  time  —  the 
summer  of  1900  —  all  the  world  was  sure  that  yellow 
fever  was  carried  from  man  to  man  in  the  clothing 
and  the  belongings  of  those  who  had  the  fever  during 
the  time  that  they  used  the  things. 

Now  hear  what  the  men  did.  They  went  into  their 
small  cottage;  kept  the  mosquitoes  out,  to  be  sure,  but 
received  instead  great  boxes  of  bedding  and  clothing 
that  had  been  used  by  yellow-fever  victims.  Soiled  blan- 
kets and  sheets,  soiled  pillow  slips  and  night  clothes,  — 
things  that  different  men  had  lived  in  for  days,  had  slept 
in  for  nights,  had  even  died  in,  —  all  these  came  to  the 
camp  without  fumigation.  The  men  there,  however,  put 
on  the  night  clothes  and  slept  in  the  bedding  every  night 
for  weeks  together. 

Nevertheless,  when  the  sixty-three  days  were  over  not 
a  man  of  the  number  had  caught  the  fever;  they  were 
as  well  as  when  they  entered  the  cottage,  and  they  had 
proved  that  yellow  fever  is  not  contagious,  —  that  is, 
that  it  does  not  travel  with  the  things  the  victims 
touch  and  use. 

At  the  same  time  that  this  experiment  was  going  on, 
another  small  building  was  put  up  at  the  camp.  Here 
were  two  rooms  with  a  wire  screen  dividing  them. 


WHY  MOSQUITOES  SHOULD  GO  235 

Everything  that  came  to  this  house  was  most  carefully 
disinfected  by  steam  before  it  was  received,  and  nothing 
but  the  cleanest,  safest  bedding  was  allowed.  Seven 
healthy  men  entered  the  larger  room,  and  stegomyia 
mosquitoes  that  had  already  drawn  yellow-fever  blood 
were  turned  into  it,  too.  The  men  were  truly  brave,  for, 
although  they  believed  that  stegomyia  carried  the  fever, 
they  were  willing  to  risk  their  lives  for  the  sake  of 
learning  how  to  save  the  lives  of  others. 

After  entering  the  room  they  were  promptly  bitten, 
for  the  mosquitoes  were  hungry.  Then,  as  had  been 
expected,  yellow  fever  followed.  Six  men  were  ill  with 
it,  and  one  hero  died.  He  was  a  surgeon  in  the  United 
States  Army,  and  the  camp  bears  his  name, —  Lazear. 

In  the  second  room  there  were  men  but  no  mosquitoes; 
neither  was  there  any  yellow  fever.  The  case  was  now 
as  clear  as  possible  against  the  unfortunate  stegomyia, 
and  Havana  set  to  work  to  get  rid  of  them. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

WHAT  NEW  ORLEANS  AND  BROOKLINE  DID 

Five  years  later,  after  Havana  had  practically  banished 
the  mosquitoes  and  conquered  the  disease,  behold,  it 
broke  out  in  New  Orleans. 

No  one  knew  how  it  came,  but  it  may  be  that  mos- 
quitoes loaded  with  yellow-fever  blood  stole  a  passage 
in  some  cargo  from  Central  America  and  arrived  in 
New  Orleans  as  hungry  as  those  Italian  anopheles  were 
when  they  reached  London. 

However  that  may  be,  early  in  the  summer  of  1905 
the  fever  was  in  the  city,  and  here  and  there  men, 
women,  and  children  were  dying  from  it.  Since  mos- 
quitoes abound  in  New  Orleans,  scientists  knew  at  once 
that  it  was  the  old  story  over  again : 

1.  A  healthy  man  stabbed  by  a  mosquito 
filled  with  yellow-fever  poison. 

2.  A  man  with  yellow  fever  and  a  mos- 
quito that  sucked  his  blood. 

The  more  cases  there  were  the  more  chances  the  stego- 
myia  had,  and  by  the  3oth  of  July  260  citizens  had  yellow 
fever  and  55  of  them  had  died.  By  the  middle  of  Septem- 
ber 2462  citizens  had  had  it  and  329  of  them  were  dead. 

236 


WHAT  NEW  ORLEANS  AND  BROOKLINE  DID      237 

Yellow  fever  has  often  traveled  even  faster  than  that. 
In  Philadelphia,  for  example,  in  1798,  over  three  thou- 
sand citizens  died  of  it,  while  New  York  had  over  two 
thousand  deaths  during  the  same  year  from  it  alone. 


CULEX  EGGS 
Magnified 


Two  EGGS 
Greatly  magnified 


In  1905,  however,  the  epidemic  in  New  Orleans  grad- 
ually faded  out  after  September.  The  truth  is  that 
intelligent  people  knew  how  Havana  had  saved  herself, 
and  they  proposed  to  follow  her  example.  Mosquitoes 


FROM  PUPA  TO  MOSQUITO  (ANOPHELES) 
Three  times  as  large  as  life 

were  therefore  slain  by  the  million,  and  larvae  by  the 
billion  and  the  trillion.  Everybody  was  in  earnest. 
Ministers  preached  sermons  on  the  subject ;  newspapers 
told  the  people  what  to  do  and  begged  them  to  do  it; 
handbills  and  posters  were  put  up  here,  there,  and 


238  TOWN  AND  CITY 

everywhere,  urging  all  good  citizens  to  carry  on  a  valiant 
war;  and  at  last  there  was  such  enthusiasm  that  rich 
men  and  poor  men,  young  men  and  old  men,  women  and 
children,  all  joined  hands. 

They  worked  Sundays  as  well  as  week  days,  for  they 
knew  that  the  choice  lay  between  killing  stegomyia  or 
being  killed  by  them. 

Sulphur  was  used  by  the  ton  and  kerosene  oil  by  the 
tankful  and  the  car  load.  Citizens  work  well  in  such  a 
cause  when  they  are  intelligent,  and  even  the  children 
of  the  city  now  knew  many  of  the  following  facts  about 
stegomyia : 

1.  Mosquitoes  lay  two  or  three  hundred 
eggs  at  a  time  in  any  spot,  large  or  small, 
that  holds  water.    A  wide-spreading  marsh 
is  not  too  large,  and  a  sardine  can  on  a  dump 
heap  is  not  too  small. 

2.  The   more   uncovered,  standing  water 
there  is  in  a  house  or  out  of  it  the  more 
mosquitoes  there  will  be. 

3.  If  there  is  no  such  water,  there  will  be 
no  mosquitoes. 

4.  Eggs    turn    to  larvae,  larvae    to   pupae, 
and  pupae  to  mosquitoes. 

5.  It  takes  anywhere  from  ten  days  to  a 
month  for  an  egg  to  turn  into  a  mosquito 
ready  to  bite. 


WHAT  NEW  ORLEANS  AND  BROOKLINE  DID      239 

6.  These  mosquitoes  do  not  often  fly  far- 
ther than  three  hundred  yards  from  where 
they  are  hatched.    Cities  may  therefore  clean 
them  out  and  not  expect  others  to  arrive 
from  another  place. 

7.  Larvae  breathe  through   a   tube  that 
runs  off  from  the  body  near  the  tail.    They 
thrust  this  tube  to  the  surface  of  the  water 
and  draw  air  down  through  it. 

8.  If  oil  is  poured  on  the  water,  each  sep- 
arate larva  runs  his  tube  into  it.    He  is  then 
drowned  because  the  oil  shuts  him  off  from 
the  air  he  needs  to  breathe. 

9.  All  mosquitoes  in  houses  should  be 
killed. 

10.  No  mosquitoes  should  ever  be  allowed 
to  bite  a  yellow-fever  patient. 
.      ii.  No  person  should  allow  himself  to  be 
bitten  by  any  mosquito  of  any  sort,  for  it  may 
turn  out  to  be  anopheles  or  stegomyia. 
Knowing  these  facts,  the  citizens  of    New   Orleans 
worked  intelligently  and  with  a  will.    In  a  single  day 
fifty  tons  of  sulphur  were  burned  in  houses  and  hotels 
to  kill  full-grown  mosquitoes,  while  multitudes  of  young 
citizens  fell  to  cutting  grass  and  pulling  weeds.    They 
were  determined  to  find  every  hidden  pool  and  marsh, 
for  there,  they  knew,  were  the  eggs  and  the  wigglers. 


240 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


Other  citizens  drove  carts  loaded  with  earth  and 
filled  ponds  and  marshy  places  as  fast  as  they  were 
found.  At  the  same  time,  on  every  street,  there  was  a 


CULEX    WlGGLER  ANOPHELES       WlGGLER 

Three  times  as  large  as  life 

smell  of  kerosene  oil,  for  there  were  forty-five  thousand 
open  cisterns  in  the  city  and  each  one  was  being  oiled. 


A 


4  v^| 
A*       S 


>    > 


WIGGLERS  SWIMMING  AND  BREATHING 
Life  size 

If  New  Orleans  had  given  heed  to  what  was  done 
in  Havana  in  1901,  she  would  have  had  no  yellow-fever 
death  record  in  1905.  She  would  have  dislodged  her 


WHAT  NEW  ORLEANS  AND  BROOKLINE  DID      241 

mosquitoes  in  time  to  save  her  citizens.  Wise  cities  all 
over  the  country  are  already  doing  this  faithfully. 

New  York  began  her  special  mosquito  work  in  1902. 
She  appointed  inspectors  to  hunt  for  ponds,  pools,  and 
stagnant  water;  she  asked  every  doctor  to  report  all  his 
malaria  cases  promptly,  and  offered  to  examine  with  the 
microscope,  free  of  charge,  the  blood  of  any  citizen  who 
was  supposed  to  have  the  fever.  If,  then,  malarial  mi- 
crobes were  found,  it  was  plain  that  the  man  had  the 
fever;  if  they  were  not  found,  the  disease  was  evidently 
something  else. 

Brookline,  Massachusetts,  has  fought  the  mosquitoes 
every  summer  since  1901.  She  has  done  this  for  three 
reasons: 

1.  There  was  malaria  in  the  place. 

2.  Mosquitoes    were    a    torment    in    the 
summer. 

3.  In  certain  parts  of  the  town  the  value 
of  property  was  low  because  the  number  of 
mosquitoes  was  high. 

Even  in  1901  the  citizens  knew  precisely  what  should 
be  done,  and  in  1901  and  1902  they  took  the  following 
steps : 

1.  They  made  a  list  of  the  places  where 
stagnant  water  stood. 

2.  They  marked  each  spot  on  a  map  of 
the  town. 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


3.  They  asked  a  scientist  to  investigate 
each  spot,  and  find  out  whether  wigglers 
were  in  it,  or  whether  frogs  and  fish  were 
there  instead. 

It  seems  that,  as  a  rule,  frogs  and  fish  enjoy  wigglers 
so  well  that  they  help  the  town  by  eating  them  up.  In 
most  of  the  ponds  and  ditches,  however,  frogs  were  few 

and  wigglers  were  many. 
These  latter,  therefore, 
needed  vigorous  treatment. 
The  board  of  health  now 
bought  oil  cans,  picks,  hoes, 
rakes,  shovels,  scythes, 
hand  force  pumps,  water- 
ing pots,  rubber  hose,  iron 
pails,  and,  most  important 
of  all,  five  hundred  gallons 
of  kerosene  oil,  the  kind 
known  as  light  fuel  oil.  This  is  thin  enough  to  spread 
quickly  and  thick  enough  not  to  evaporate  too  fast. 

To  take  charge  of  these  things  and  use  them  the 
board  next  hired  two  laborers,  a  horse,  a  wagon,  and  an 
overseer,  and  sent  them  off  to  fill  the  small  ponds  and 
oil  the  large  ones  of  the  town.  Watering  pots  and  hose 
sprinkled  the  oil,  though  often  all  that  was  needed  was 
to  pour  it  on  and  stir  up  the  water  and  let  the  oil  do  its 
own  spreading. 


OILING  A  BROOKLINE   POND  TO 
SUFFOCATE  THE  WlGGLERS 


WHAT  NEW  ORLEANS  AND  BROOKLINE  DID       243 

Still,  even  before  that,  work  was  necessary,  for  when 
either  pool,  pond,  or  ditch  was  overgrown  with  water 
weeds  and  grass,  a  scythe  was  first  used  to  cut  the  stuff 
away.  If  the  place  was  found  to  be  shallow  or  small, 
instead  of  using  oil  it  was  filled  with  earth  from  some 
neighboring  higher  spot.  To  turn  a  pool  into  dry  land 
in  this  way  is  a  more  permanent  help  than  to  oil  it,  for 
oil  evaporates  within  two  or  three  weeks  and  has  to  be 
put  on  again. 

In  return  for  paying  the  bills  and  helping  in  the  work, 
the  citizens  of  Brookline  now  reap  a  rich  reward.  They 
have  banished  culex,  anopheles,  and  all,  and  on  warm 
summer  evenings  they  sit  in  peace  on  their  wide  veran- 
das, fearing  neither  malaria  nor  mosquitoes. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

HOSPITAL,  DISPENSARY,  AND   AMBULANCE 

When  Mr.  Barber,  the  traveler,  visited  China,  taking 
notes  of  what  he  saw,  he  realized  that  the  inhabitants  of 
the  Yunnan  valley  had  never  heard  of  microbes. 

They  did  believe,  however,  that  a  certain  deadly  disease 
called  the  plague  was  contagious,  and  to  save  themselves 
from  it  those  who  were  well  never  tarried  for  a  moment 
near  a  victim  of  the  disease  if  they  could  help  it.  They 
simply  put  the  unfortunate  person  into  a  room  by 
himself,  placed  a  vessel  of  water  by  his  side,  left  the 
room,  fastened  the  door,  put  a  long  pole  beside  it,  and 
went  away. 

Twice  a  day  after  that  those  same  anxious  relatives 
and  friends  returned  to  the  door,  opened  it  a  crack,  took 
hold  of  the  long  pole,  thrust  it  into  the  room,  and  poked 
the  man  with  it  to  find  out  whether  he  was  still  alive  or 
whether  he  had  died.  Generally,  of  course,  he  died,  but 
sometimes  he  actually  recovered  and  staggered  out  of  the 
room  weak  and  forlorn  enough,  though  ready  to  go  on 
living  for  a  while  longer. 

Still,  even  this  strange  treatment  was  wiser  than  that 

practiced  by  the  Ponapeans  when  smallpox  raged  on  their 

244 


HOSPITAL,  DISPENSARY,  AND  AMBULANCE         245 

island,  for  the  Chinese  method  does  at  least  check  an  epi- 
demic, while  the  Ponapean  method  advances  it  by  leaps 
and  bounds. 

In  all  countries,  however,  hospitals  are  best.  They 
existed  long  before  Pasteur  discovered  the  secret  of  epi- 
demic microbes,  but  as  no  one  in  those  days  knew  the 
tricks  of  the  microbe,  every  sort  of  disease  except  small- 
pox was  bunched  together  under  the  same  roof.  Con- 
sumption, scarlet  fever,  diphtheria,  measles,  and  whooping 
cough  sometimes  flourished  side  by  side,  while  in  such  a 
place  children  recovering  from  one  disease  were  often 
weak  enough  and  unfortunate  enough  to  take  another 
from  some  near  neighbor. 

This  was  the  case  in  New  York  even  as  late  as  1905. 
At  that  time,  although  every  one  knew  whooping  cough 
to  be  contagious,  no  whooping-cough  hospitals  had  been 
provided  in  the  city.  When,  therefore,  a  certain  boy  had 
the  malady,  and  when,  in  spite  of  all  he  could  do,  he 
exposed  many  other  children  to  it,  the  health  department 
advised  his  going  to  a  hospital. 

Nevertheless,  no  hospital  in  New  York  was  willing  to 
expose  its  patients  to  the  danger  of  catching  the  disease. 
The  whole  affair,  therefore,  ended  by  the  boy's  being 
sent  to  a  particular  hospital  in  another  city  where  many 
different  kinds  of  disease  were  cared  for.  As  no  other 
spot  in  the  building  was  vacant,  the  officers  put  the  boy 
in  the  scarlet-fever  room,  hoping,  of  course,  that  he 


246  TOWN  AND  CITY 

would  escape  the  disease.  Instead,  he  added  scarlet  fever 
to  whooping  cough  and  died  soon  afterwards. 

Fortunately  that  sort  of  thing  is  exceedingly  rare  in 
America ;  for  in  our  largest  cities  each  special  disease 
has  its  own  special  hospital,  or  its  special  rooms  apart 
from  all  the  others. 

An  interesting  example  of  this  is  in  St.  Paul,  Minne- 
sota. In  that  city  the  hospital  that  has  special  con- 
tagious-disease wards  claims  to  keep  two  objects  always 
in  mind : 

1.  To  quarantine  contagious  disease;  that 
is,  to  keep  each  kind  by  itself. 

2.  To  keep  healthy  people  from  being  ex- 
posed to  the  contagious  diseases  that  have 
come  to  the  hospital  to  be  cured. 

Naturally,  of  course,  everything  is  arranged  to  accom- 
plish these  two  things. 

The  three-story  red  brick  building  stands  on  a  high 
bluff  surrounded  by  air  and  sunshine.  It  overlooks  the 
Mississippi  River,  and  from  basement  to  roof  it  is  a  com- 
pact set  of  rooms  constructed  to  keep  the  microbes  of 
one  disease  from  mingling  with  the  microbes  of  the  other 
diseases  in  the  hospital. 

To  run  no  risk  in  the  matter,  each  separate  floor  has 
its  separate  elevator,  and  the  only  way  to  go  from  floor 
to  floor  to  the  contagious-disease  rooms  is  by  stepping 
out  of  doors,  using  some  outside  stairs,  and  then  stepping 


HOSPITAL,  DISPENSARY,  AND  AMBULANCE         247 

indoors  again  a  story  higher  or  a  story  lower,  for  there 
are  no  inside  stairways  connecting  the  stories  with  each 
other. 

By  all  this  arrangement  the  one  hundred  and  fifty 
patients  in  the  hospital  are  as  safe  from  each  other's  dis- 
eases as  if  their  different  microbes  lived  in  different 
buildings.  That,  indeed,  is  the  ambition  of  every  conta- 
gious-disease hospital  in  the  world.  They  aim  to  be 
places  where  citizens  have  the  best  chance  to  overcome 
their  own  disease  microbes  and  the  least  chance  to  share 
them  with  other  people. 

Small  cities  and  large  cities  are  alike  in  this,  but  each 
has  its  own  special  hospital  history. 

New  York  began  with  hers  in  the  days  when  her  city 
name  was  New  Amsterdam.  At  that  time  the  churches 
of  the  town  raised  money  to  care  for  the  sick  and  unfor- 
tunate people  of  the  place.  Later  the  town  itself  helped 
pay  the  bills.  Later  yet,  when  a  smallpox  epidemic  raged 
in  1736,  the  city  built  a  small  house  on  the  spot  where 
the  city  hall  now  stands,  and  called  it  the  city  poorhouse. 

It  was  in  that  very  building,  one  hundred  and  seventy 
years  ago,  that  the  great  Bellevue  Hospital  began  its  his- 
tory, for  one  room  of  this  poorhouse  was  set  aside  for  the 
use  of  citizens  who  had  no  other  place  to  go,  and  who 
were  too  ill  to  care  for  themselves. 

The  room  held  six  beds.  It  was  not  very  comfortable, 
not  very  clean,  not  well  ventilated,  and  no  tidy  trained 


248 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


nurse  ever  cared  for  the  sick  who  were  in  it.  Neverthe- 
less, that  was  the  hospital  part  of  the  poorhouse,  and  it 
was  much  better  than  nothing. 

In  those  days,  however,  yellow  fever  visited  the  city 
almost  every  year.  More  beds  were  needed,  also  larger 
rooms,  so  another  building  was  put  up.  After  that  still 


Copyrighted  by  Van  Horn  and  Sawtelle 

THE  BELLEVUE  HOSPITAL 

another  was  required,  and  in  1811  the  whole  institution 
of  poorhouse  and  hospital  was  moved  to  where  the 
Bellevue  Hospital  stands  to-day,  though  the  name  itself 
was  not  given  to  the  place  until  1825. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  it  continued  to  grow  and 
has  kept  on  growing  ever  since,  constantly  changing 
its  character. 


HOSPITAL,  DISPENSARY,  AND  AMBULANCE         249 

Starting  as  a  poorhouse,  it  became  a  hospital.  Start- 
ing with  one  room,  six  beds,  and  small  expense,  it 
had  in  1902,  nine  hundred 
and  thirty-nine  beds,  with 
thirty  thousand  people 
cared  for  during  one  year, 
at  an  expense  to  the  city, 
of  four  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  dollars.  Opening 
for  sick  citizens  who  had 
almost  every  sort  of  disease, 
it  now  refuses  to  receive 
any  citizen  suffering  with  a 
contagious  disease. 

In  other  words,  the  hospi- 
tal has  grown  with  the  city, 
while  at  the  same  time  it 
has  learned  the  lesson  of  the 
microbe  and  the  danger  of 
epidemic  diseases. 

During  the  years  that  the 
Bellevue  was  growing  other 
hospitals  also  came  to  life, 
until  to-day  New  York  City 
has  twenty-two  of  them.  Some  are  supported  by  the 
city,  others  by  generous  citizens.  Some  take  care  of  all 
diseases  save  those  that  are  contagious;  others  are  for 


A  NURSE 
Ready  to  be  useful 


250  TOWN  AND  CITY 

contagious  diseases  alone,  —  for  measles,  consumption, 
diphtheria,  smallpox,  cancer,  and  the  like.  Others  yet  are 
for  special  sets  of  people,  as  for  children  and  the  aged ; 
also  for  special  diseases  of  special  parts  of  the  body,  — 
for  example,  the  eye  and  ear,  the  nose,  throat,  and  skin. 

As  interesting  as  any  is  the  wonderful  children's  hospi- 
tal on  Forty-second  Street.  Here  two  hundred  children 
with  crooked  bones  and  twisted  backs  are  gradually  being 
made  straight  again.  Their  disease  is  really  tuberculosis 
of  the  bones,  yet  in  the  midst  of  sunshine,  pure  air,  and 
cleanliness,  with  toys  to  keep  them  merry  and  kind  nurs- 
ing to  help  them  along,  case  after  case  improves  and  even 
gets  well  again. 

In  every  hospital,  in  every  land,  the  same  laws  of 
cleanliness  and  sunshine,  of  good  nursing  and  skilled 
doctors  are  the  laws  of  quick  recovery.  Still  some  hospi- 
tals have  more  money  with  which  to  carry  out  the  laws, 
while  others  are  more  modern  and  can  do  it  better. 

St.  Luke's  Hospital,  in  New  York,  seems  to  be  a  model 
in  all  directions,  as  the  following  precise  facts  will  show : 

1.  Its  location  is  Morningside  Heights,  the 
most  beautiful  hospital  site  in  New  York  City. 

2.  The  building  is  gray  brick  and  stone 
on  the  outside;    on  the  inside  exceedingly 
plain,  no  chance  for  dust  anywhere,  no  sharp 
angles  where  floor  meets  wall  or  where  wall 
meets  ceiling,  curves  being  used  instead.    No 


HOSPITAL,  DISPENSARY,  AND  AMBULANCE         251 

moldings  are  on  the  walls  to  hold  dust,  and 
there  are  no  curtains  or  carpets  in  the  rooms 
to  catch  and  keep  it. 

3.  Each  ward  shows  polished  floors,  white 
walls,  white  iron  bedsteads,  and  long  rows 
of  windows,  while  cleanliness,  sunshine,  and 
good  cheer  are  on  every  side. 

4.  There  is    perfect  ventilation.    In  each 
room  the  air  is  changed  every  ten  minutes, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  is  kept  warm  in 
winter  and  cool  in  summer. 

This  hospital  provides  for  three  hundred  free  patients, 
beside  thirty-six  others  who  pay  for  what  they  get.  It 
receives  its  patients  from  doctors  all  over  the  city,  and 
supplies  ten  house  doctors,  seventy-one  nurses,  and 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  servants  to  attend  to  their 
wants. 

Last  of  all,  and  one  of  the  most  important  things  that 
hospitals  provide  for  citizens,  is  the  ambulance.  Listen 
to  the  clanging  bell,  and  see  wagons,  horses,  and  men 
move  quickly  aside  as  one  of  the  long  black  wagons 
rushes  by. 

Some  doctor  or  policeman  has  called  it  by  telephone, 
and  even  the  horses  seem  to  understand  that  a  citizen  is 
injured,  ill,  or  dying ;  that  a  human  life  is  at  stake  and  that 
the  ambulance  must  reach  him  in  time.  In  fact,  according 
to  city  law,  everything  else  gives  way  as  promptly  to  an 


252 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


ambulance  as  to  the  fire  engine ;  while  safely  stowed  away 
inside  are  bandages,  medicine,  and  instruments,  and  a 
surgeon  ready  to  use  them  on  the  way  to  the  hospital  if 
they  are  needed. 

New  York  City  has  thousands  of  these  vehicles.    Each 
belongs  to  its  own    particular  district,  serves  its  own 


To  CARRY  THOSE  WHO  SUFFER 

particular  hospital,  and  is  ready  to  start  at  a  minute's 
notice. 

Dispensaries  also  have  their  own  districts.  There  are 
several  times  as  many  dispensaries  as  hospitals  in  New 
York  City,  and  indeed  there  should  be,  for  they  give  free 
medicines  and  free  advice  to  citizens  who  are  not  ill 
enough  to  go  to  bed,  whereas  the  hospitals  are  only  for 
those  who  are  ill  enough  to  spend  most  of  their  time 
lying  down. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   LIST 

The  reference  books  are  grouped  under  the  chapters  to  which  they  belong. 

CHAPTERS  I,  II,  III 

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DE  FOREST,  ROBERT  W.,  and  VEILLER,  LAWRENCE,  The  Tenement  House 
Problem.  1903. 

DE  FOREST,  ROBERT  W.,  Recent  Progress  in  Tenement  House  Reform. 
From  the  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social 
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LEDERLE,  ERNEST,  New  York  City's  Sanitary  Problems  and  their  Solu- 
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Rus,  JACOB  A.,  How  the  Other  Half  Lives.    1890. 

Rus,  JACOB  A.,  A  Ten  Years'  Fight.    1902. 

WOODS,  ROBERT  A.,  The  City  Wilderness.    1898. 

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CHAPTERS  V,  VI,  VII,  VIII 

BAKER,  M.  N.,  Municipal  Engineering  and  Sanitation.    1902. 

CHAPIN,  C.  V.,  Municipal  Sanitation  in  the  United  States.    1901. 

DE  FOREST,  ROBERT  W.,  and  VEILLER,  LAWRENCE,  The  Tenement  House 

Problem.    1903. 

Rus,  JACOB  A.,  A  Ten  Years'  Fight.    1902. 
STEARNS,   F.   L.,   General   Information  about  the  Department  of  Street 

Cleaning.    New  York  City.    1905. 
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253 


254  TOWN  AND  CITY 


CHAPTER  IX 

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1901. 
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Rus,  JACOB  A.,  Out  of  Mulberry  Street.    1898. 
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CHAPTERS  IV,  X,  XI,  XVIII,  XXVI,  XXVII 

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pamphlet).  1900. 

BOIES,  H.  M.,  The  Science  of  Penology.    1901. 

BOOTH,  CHARLES,  Life  and  Labor  in  London. 

CLARK,  SIR  ANDREW,  The  Action  of  Acohol  upon  Health. 

GALLINGER,  J.  H.,  Scientific  Testimony  on  Beer.  Congressional  Record, 
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MADDEN,  JOHN,  Shall  We  Drink  Wine?    1899. 

MOORE,  RODERICK  MACKENZIE,  On  the  Comparative  Mortality  among 
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Beverages.  Read  before  the  Institute  of  Actuaries,  November  30, 
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McCLiNTOCK,  EMORY,  On  the  Rates  of  Death  Loss  among  Total  Abstainers 
and  Others.  1895. 

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Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  1 896. 

ROWNTREE  and  SHERWELL,  The  Temperance  Problem  and  Social  Reform. 

SEAVER,  J.  W.,  Effects  of  Nicotine.    The  Arena,  Vol.  XVII,  1897. 

SMYTH,  A.  WATT,  Physical  Deterioration  :  Its  Causes  and  its  Cure.    1904. 

WARNER,  AMOS  G.,  American  Charities.    1894. 

WHITTAKER,  THOMAS  P.,  Alcoholic  Beverages  and  Longevity.  Contempo- 
rary Review,  March,  1904. 

VAN  CISE,  JOEL  G.,  Effect  of  Total  Abstinence  on  the  Death  Rate.    1904. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  LIST 


CHAPTERS  XII,  XIII,  XIV,  XV,  XVI 


255 


BRACKET,  DEXTER,  Report  on  the  Measurement,  Consumption,  and  Waste 
of  Water  supplied  to  the  Metropolitan  Water  District.  Journal  of  the 
New  England  Water  Works  Association,  June,  1904. 

PRESCOTT,  S.  C,  and  WIN  SLOW,  C.  E.  A.,  Elements  of  Water  Bacteri- 
ology. 1 904. 

Reports  of  the  Board  of  Public  Service  of  Cleveland,  Ohio.  1902- 
1903. 

Report  of  the  Commission  on  the  Additional  Water  Supply  for  the  City  of 
New  York.  1903. 

Reports  of  the  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Health.    1890-1895. 

Reports  of  the  Water  Board  of  the  City  of  Lawrence,  Massachusetts, 
1902-1905. 

SEDGWICK,  WILLIAM  T.,  Principles  of  Sanitary  Science  and  The  Public 
Health.  1902. 

Water- Softening  Plant,  at  Oberlin,  Ohio.    By  W.  B.  Gerrish.     1905. 

Water  Famine  Danger  in  New  York  City.  Engineering  News,  December 
15,  1904. 

Water  Supply  of  the  City  of  New  York.  Prepared  by  the  Merchants 
Association  of  New  York,  1900. 


CHAPTERS    XIX,  XX 

BELCHER,  S.  D.,  Clean  Milk.    1903. 

BLYTH,  ALEXANDER  WYNTER,  Foods  :  Their  Composition  and  Analysis. 
1896. 

GOLER,  GEORGE  W.,  The  Origin,  Development,  and  Results  of  Municipal 
Milk  Work  in  Rochester,  New  York.  1906. 

GOLER,  GEORGE  W.,  The  Influence  of  the  Municipal  Milk  Supply  upon 
the  Deaths  of  Young  Children.  1903. 

Health  Department  of  the  City  of  New  York.  A  Statement  of  Facts.  Pub- 
lished by  The  City  Club  of  New  York,  1903. 

Report  of  the  Department  of  Health  of  the  City  of  New  York.    1902. 

SEDGWICK,  WILLIAM  T.,  Principles  of  Sanitary  Science.     1902. 


256  TOWN  AND  CITY 


CHAPTERS   XXI,  XXII,  XXIII,  XXIV,  XXV 

ABBOTT,  A.  C.,  The  Hygiene  of  Transmissible  Disease.    1901. 

BIGGS,   HERMAN   M.,   Tuberculosis   and   the   Tenement  House  Problem 

(appearing  in  The  Tenement  House  Problem).    1903. 
BRANDT,   LILIAN,   Directory  of   Institutions   and  Societies   dealing  with 

Tuberculosis  in  the  United  States  and  Canada.    1904. 
Handbook  on  the  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis.    Being  the  First  Annual 

Report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis  of  the 

Charity  Organization  Society  of  the  City  of  New  York,  1903. 
RADOT,  M.  V.,  Louis  Pasteur  :  His  Life  and  Labors.    1885. 
Report  of  the  Health  Department  of  the  City  of  New  York.    1902. 
STERNBERG,  GEORGE  M.,  Infection  and  Immunity.    1903. 

CHAPTERS   XXVIII,  XXIX 

CHASE,  H.  LINCOLN,  and  NYHEN,  J.  ALBERT  C.,  Abatement  of  the  Mos- 
quito Nuisance  in  Brookline.  Journal  of  the  Massachusetts  Association 
of  the  Boards  of  Health,  1903. 

GRASSI,  BATTISTA,  Die  Malaria.    Studien  eines  Zoologisten,  1901. 

HOWARD,  L.  O.,  Mosquitoes:  How  They  Live;  How  They  Carry  Dis- 
ease ;  How  They  are  Classified  ;  How  They  may  be  Destroyed.  1902. 

Reports  of  the  War  Department.    1901. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

Bellevue  and  Allied  Hospitals.    City  of  New  York,  Annual  Report,  1903. 
Charities  (current  numbers).    1900-1905. 

HURD,  HENRY  M.,  Hospitals,  Dispensaries,  and  Nursing.  Charities  Review, 
October  and  November,  1900. 


QUESTIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

What  advantage  has  a  city  man  over  an  Indian  on  the  prairie? 
Mention  some  ways  in  which  city  people  help  each  other.  Describe 
the  growth  of  New  York  from  1 700  to  1 900.  What  changes  were  made 
in  houses  and  streets  ?  What  did  the  city  do,  with  a  hundred  thousand 
fresh  arrivals  every  year?  What  is  an  air  shaft?  Who  suffer  most  in 
dark,  unventilated  rooms?  Why  do  people  crowd  into  certain  parts  of 
a  city? 

CHAPTER  II 

What  happens  to  overcrowded  halls,  rooms,  and  houses?  What 
state  of  things  did  Mr.  Riis  find  in  New  York  City?  What  three  con- 
ditions are  best  for  microbes  and  worst  for  men?  What  is  the  death 
rate  in  healthful  cities?  What  increases  the  death  rate?  What  are 
rear  tenements?  Why  are  they  sometimes  called  "infant  slaughter- 
houses"? What  do  statistics  prove  about  one-room  and  four- room 
tenements  ?  In  what  other  way  may  crowded  tenements  be  a  source 
of  danger  to  citizens?  Give  two  reasons  why  every  part  of  a  city 
should  be  clean  and  well  ventilated. 

CHAPTER  III 

What  is  a  tenement  house  ?  What  city  department  takes  charge  of 
them  in  New  York?  How  many  inspectors  were  appointed  in  1902? 
Describe  the  work  of  one  of  them.  What  three  things  did  the  department 

25? 


258  TOWN  AND  CITY 

plan  to  do?  Describe  an  "old-law"  tenement;  a  " new-law"  tene- 
ment. How  did  citizens  show  delight  over  the  new  houses?  What 
was  done  to  old  tenements?  What  was  the  New  York  death  rate  in 
1866?  in  1903?  When  the  death  rate  in  New  York  in  one  year  is 
seventeen  instead  of  eighteen  per  thousand,  how  many  lives  are  saved  ? 

CHAPTER  IV 

How  did  Massachusetts  study  the  connection  between  crime  and 
alcohol  in  1880?  Give  the  number  of  alcohol  arrests;  of  all  other 
arrests.  What  was  the  record  for  twenty  years  before  that?  In  1900 
what  share  of  the  Elmira  convicts  had  drunken  ancestors?  How 
did  those  ancestors  increase  the  expenses  of  the  state  of  New  York? 
How  do  sober  people  pay  the  drunkard's  bills?  How  is  the  money 
raised?  Describe  the  wave  of  temperance  in  Ireland.  Mention  some 
differences  between  Vineland  and  New  Britain  in  1893.  What  things 
are  people  glad  to  be  taxed  for? 

CHAPTER  V 

What  difference  is  there  in  the  air  of  different  streets  ?  What  advan- 
tage have  tall  people  over  short  people  in  the  matter  of  street  air? 
Who  cleaned  the  streets  of  New  York  City  in  1898?  What  was  their 
condition  ?  What  did  Colonel  Waring  decide  about  street  sweepers  and 
politics  ?  What  were  the  sweepers  called  ?  Why  ?  Describe  the  division 
of  the  work.  What  was  the  result?  Tell  what  is  done  with  the  snow  in 
New  York  City  after  a  storm. 

CHAPTER  VI 

What  did  the  juvenile  leagues  do?  Tell  about  their  reports.  Give 
the  civic  pledge.  Describe  the  parade  in  1896.  What  effect  did  New 
York's  example  have  on  other  cities? 


QUESTIONS  259 

CHAPTER  VII 

Who  is  the  head  of  the  street-cleaning  department  in  your  city? 
What  is  the  New  York  law  about  throwing  things  into  the  street? 
What  should  go  into  garbage  receptacles?  into  ash  cans?  into  rub- 
bish bundles?  Why  are  these  kept  apart?  What  was  formerly  done 
with  all  the  waste  material  of  New  York  City?  Which  part  of  it  now 
goes  to  Riker's  Island?  Which  part  to  Barren  Island?  Describe  the 
treatment  it  gets.  What  becomes  of  rubbish  bundles?  How  do  they 
benefit  Williamsburg  Bridge?  What  three  things  does  New  York  do 
with  her  waste? 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Why  are  parks  and  playgrounds  important?  How  did  New  York 
policemen  help  the  park  committee?  What  is  the  New  York  law  about 
playgrounds  and  schoolhouses?  Why  are  playgrounds  put  on  the 
roof  of  school  buildings?  Tell  what  you  can  of  Boston's  parks.  What 
is  the  usual  charge  for  a  public  bath  in  the  United  States?  Why  do 
cities  wish  their  citizens  to  bathe?  Mention  three  important  points 
about  city  baths.  Why  are  tubs  objectionable?  What  advantage  has 
a  shower  bath?  Mention  some  of  the  gymnastic  apparatus  in  Seward 
Park. 

CHAPTER  IX 

What  apparatus  does  a  fireman  use?  What  must  he  learn  to  do? 
Where  does  he  have  the  hardest  work?  Give  two  important  fire  laws 
for  the  new-law  tenement  houses.  Tell  all  you  can  about  fire  escapes, 
—  stating  where  they  should  be,  and  describing  the  difference  between 
the  right  and  the  wrong  kind.  Why  is  there  a  law  against  encumbered 
fire  escapes?  What  is  the  fine?  What  should  you  do  in  case  of  fire? 
Describe  some  school  that  saved  itself  by  the  fire  drill.  Mention  some 
fires  that  are  caused  by  carelessness. 


26o  TOWN  AND  CITY 

CHAPTER  X 

In  former  times  what  did  railroad  men  do  about  using  alcohol? 
What  did  other  people  think  about  those  men?  What  change  do  we 
now  find?  Tell  what  you  can  of  railroad  changes  within  eighty  years. 
Why  are  more  careful  railroad  men  needed  now  than  in  early  days? 
What  did  railroad  companies  first  notice  about  drinking  and  accidents? 
What  rule  did  they  make  first?  What  other  rules  were  made  later? 
How  do  we  know  that  the  railroad  business  of  the  country  is  one  of 
the  largest,  strongest,  and  strictest  temperance  societies  in  the  world? 

CHAPTER  XI 

What  other  great  business  does  temperance  work?  What  did  people 
formerly  think  about  alcohol  and  long  life?  What  did  a  certain  life 
insurance  company  do  in  1840?  How  did  that  company  make  its  dis- 
covery about  total  abstinence  and  long  life?  What  was  the  discovery? 
What  did  other  societies  also  find  out?  What  difference  does  this 
sometimes  make  in  paying  for  life  insurance?  When  men  train  as 
athletes  what  is  the  rule  about  using  alcohol? 

CHAPTER  XII 

What  did  New  York  City  do  for  water  in  early  times?  What  did  she 
finally  do?  What  danger  threatened  in  1900?  Tell  what  you  can 
about  Croton  River,  the  dam,  and  the  aqueduct  in  1905.  What  has 
New  York  done  about  getting  a  larger  supply  of  water?  How  does  any 
city  know  how  much  to  plan  for  ?  What  did  Massachusetts  learn  about 
the  use  of  meters  ?  Why  does  a  city  without  meters  waste  more  than  a 
city  with  them? 

CHAPTER  XIII 

What  did  the  Romans  do  for  drinking  water?  What  two  water 
lessons  has  China  learned?  What  did  the  cholera  records  for  London 


QUESTIONS  261 

prove?  Describe  the  epidemic  for  1854.  What  was  the  cholera  notice? 
Give  the  circle  of  the  water  history.  How  may  pure  rain  water  become 
impure?  Which  is  the  special  water  disease  in  the  United  States? 
How  do  typhoid  microbes  reach  the  water?  Why  do  we  need  to  know 
the  history  of  surface  water?  When  is  drinking  water  perfectly  safe? 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Describe  the  epidemic  in  Plymouth,  Pennsylvania.  Where  did 
the  typhoid  microbes  come  from?  What  did  that  one  epidemic  cost 
Plymouth?  What  three  points  must  be  kept  in  mind  when  men  search 
for  a  water  supply  for  a  town?  Give  the  history  of  Cleveland  and 
her  drinking  water.  What  became  of  her  sewage?  Tell  about  the 
epidemic  in  1903.  What  did  Cleveland  do?  What  difference  did  the 
new  arrangement  make  in  the  typhoid  death  rate?  What  did  Chicago 
do  to  improve  the  drinking  water? 

CHAPTER  XV 

Describe  the  growth  of  cities  on  the  Merrimac  River.  What  drink- 
ing water  did  they  use?  What  became  of  their  sewage?  Which  houses 
on  the  river  were  sure  of  pure  drinking  water?  Even  after  they  learned 
about  microbes  what  did  scientists  still  think  about  water  that  is  in 
motion?  What  difference  does  it  make  whether  a  river  carries  much  or 
little  sewage?  What  city  on  the  Merrimac  had  the  most  typhoid  deaths? 
Which  was  farthest  downstream?  How  far  is  Lawrence  from  Lowell? 
Give  the  experience  of  Newburyport  in  1893.  What  connection  did 
people  finally  notice  between  typhoid  in  Lowell  and  in  Lawrence? 
Since  Lawrence  always  had  Lowell  sewage  in  her  drinking  water,  why 
did  she  not  always  have  typhoid  fever?  What  did  the  Massachusetts 
Board  of  Health  do  to  help  these  cities? 


262  TOWN  AND  CITY 

CHAPTER  XVI 

What  did  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Health  advise  Lawrence  to 
do?  How  were  the  filters  made?  Describe  the  water  before  it  went  into 
the  filters  and  after  it  left  them.  After  two  years  how  did  Lawrence 
know  that  her  filters  still  worked  well?  In  what  way  does  the  Board  of 
Health  help  other  cities?  Besides  advising  sand  filters  for  Lawrence, 
what  else  has  the  board  done  there  ?  What  has  that  experiment  station 
learned  about  sewage?  What  is  the  difference  between  sand  filters  for 
water  and  for  sewage?  What  becomes  of  the  microbes  in  the  water 
and  sewage?  What  is  the  difference  between  a  continuous  filter  and 
an  intermittent  filter? 

CHAPTER  XVII 

In  war,  as  a  rule,  how  many  soldiers  in  every  hundred  are  killed  by 
bullets  and  how  many  by  microbes?  Why  did  Japan  need  to  change 
the  record?  What  did  she  decide  to  do  about  preventable  diseases? 
How  did  she  go  to  work  to  save  her  soldiers?  Tell  all  you  can  about 
it.  What  command  was  given  on  war  ships  before  a  battle?  When  the 
war  was  over  what  change  had  Japan  made  in  the  death  record  for 
bullets  and  microbes? 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

Who  was  Professor  Seaver?  What  did  he  wish  to  find  out  about 
tobacco?  What  records  did  he  keep  for  nine  years?  What  did  these 
records  show  about  the  age  of  smokers  and  non-smokers  who  entered 
college?  What  difference  was  there  in  the  height  of  the  men?  in  the 
size  of  their  lungs?  Into  what  three  groups  did  he  divide  the  college 
students?  Which  group  gained  most  in  every  direction?  Which  were 
the  best  scholars?  Why  did  the  Japanese  government  discuss  the  sub- 
ject of  tobacco?  What  arguments  did  the  speakers  use?  What  was 
the  result  of  the  great  discussion? 


QUESTIONS  263 

CHAPTER  XIX 

How  did  the  Board  of  Health  know  that  the  Springfield  epidemic  in 
1892  came  from  milk?  Tell  what  you  can  about  the  New  York  babies 
and  the  milk  they  used  in  1903.  What  did  the  health  department  wish 
to  learn?  What  is  pasteurized  milk?  What  is  the  important  difference 
between  raw  milk  and  pasteurized  milk?  Which  kind  proved  to  be 
best  for  the  babies?  In  what  two  ways  may  microbes  damage  milk? 
What  does  boiling  do  to  microbes?  What  are  the  three  important 
conditions  of  pure  milk?  What  two  points  was  the  milk  investigator 
to  look  into? 

CHAPTER  XX 

Describe  a  model  dairy.  Describe  one  of  the  opposite  kind.  Why 
does  not  straining  the  milk  take  out  the  microbes?  What  three  facts 
does  a  model  dairy  teach  about  microbes?  What  does  a  "  microbe 
dairy  "  teach?  Give  some  of  the  instructions  that  the  New  York  health 
department  send  out  in  regard  to  milk.  Besides  watching  the  milk 
supply  what  else  do  city  inspectors  do?  Describe  the  work  done  in 
Rochester,  New  York. 

CHAPTER  XXI 

Who  first  discovered  disease  microbes?  Describe  the  harm  they 
were  doing  to  silkworms.  What  four  facts  did  Pasteur  learn  from  his 
two  sets  of  eggs?  How  did  he  get  healthy  worms  to  eat  microbes? 
What  was  the  result?  As  a  rule,  how  did  healthy  worms  catch  the 
disease?  Describe  the  hook  discovery.  What  did  Pasteur  decide  to  be 
the  only  way  to  raise  healthy  worms?  How  do  women  and  girls  help 
in  this  matter  in  France?  What  four  silkworm  discoveries  are  more 
important  to  men  than  to  worms? 


264  TOWN  AND  CITY 

CHAPTER  XXII 

How  did  Pasteur  raise  his  weak  and  his  strong  microbes?  How  did 
he  use  these  microbes  when  he  wished  to  save  an  animal  from  splenic 
fever?  In  what  way  did  his  discoveries  save  the  lives  of  thousands  of 
sheep  and  cows  in  prance?  How  may  hydrophobia  be  prevented? 
What  do  microbes  make  while  they  multiply?  Is  it  the  microbe  or  the 
toxin  that  does  most  harm  in  a  case  of  diphtheria?  What  cures  diph- 
theria? Which  animals  raise  antitoxin  for  us?  Tell  as  much  as  you  can 
about  the  way  in  which  it  is  done.  What  do  we  mean  when  we  say  a 
horse  is  immune?  Why  should  antitoxin  be  used  as  promptly  as  possible 
after  diphtheria  begins? 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

Why  did  Cleveland  doctors  hurry  so  with  their  vaccinating?  What 
started  the  epidemic  on  Ponape?  Describe  it.  What  is  the  difference 
between  inoculation  and  vaccination?  What  did  New  York  City  do  to 
check  a  smallpox  epidemic  in  1902?  What  were  some  of  the  duties 
of  the  inspectors?  How  many  citizens  were  vaccinated  within  six 
months?  What  led  Dr.  Jenner  to  his  discovery?  How  is  vaccine 
raised?  How  often  should  we  be  vaccinated? 

CHAPTER  XXIV 

How  many  people  died  from  tuberculosis  in  New  York  City  in  1904? 
How  many  in  the  United  States?  Who  discovered  the  tubercle  bacilli? 
When?  Give  some  facts  about  the  microbe.  In  which  parts  of  a  city 
do  we  find  the  most  consumption?  Describe  "Lung  Block."  How 
does  one  case  of  consumption  in  a  room  lead  to  others?  Where  do 
microbes  stay?  How  do  they  reach  the  air?  What  objection  is  there 
to  dry  sweeping  and  a  feather  duster?  How  do  microbes  reach  the 
lungs?  Give  their  history  after  that.  What  do  the  lung  cells  try  to  do? 


QUESTIONS  265 

Why  is  sputum  dangerous?  Do  we  inherit  consumption?  How  may 
parents  give  consumption  to  children?  Why  is  it  important  to  know 
the  history  of  the  rooms  we  are  to  live  in? 

CHAPTER  XXV 

Give  the  triple  motto  used  by  those  who  fight  tuberculosis.  Mention 
two  ways  in  which  a  city  may  save  itself  from  tuberculosis.  Tell  what 
you  can  of  the  anti-tuberculosis  work  of  New  York  City.  In  what  way 
is  tuberculosis  like  a  fire  in  the  lumber  yard?  Mention  the  four  things 
which  help  cure  consumption.  How  may  people  get  fresh  air  even  in  a 
city?  Tell  what  you  can  about  tents  and  outdoor  life  for  consumptives. 
What  are  the  five  tuberculosis  D's?  Give  the  golden  rule  of  the  anti- 
tuberculosis  leagues. 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

What  experience  did  an  American  nurse  have  in  Havana?  In  Pro- 
fessor Guttstadt's  tuberculosis  death-list  which  class  of  people  stands 
highest?  How  can  you  explain  this?  What  did  Professor  Adams  learn 
about  cholera?  What  did  Dr.  Thomas  learn  from  the  rabbits?  Tell 
what  you  can  about  the  remarks  of  the  Toledo  doctors.  What  does 
Dr.  Atwater  say  about  the  effect  of  alcohol  on  the  mental  functions? 
Give  what  you  can  from  Professor  Demme's  record  of  intemperate 
families  and  temperate  families. 

CHAPTER  XXVII 

Who  was  Little  Turtle?  What  help  did  he  ask  of  the  white  man? 
Repeat  some  of  the  things  he  said.  What  treaty  did  the  United  States 
make  with  the  Five  Civilized  Tribes?  What  did  Abraham  Lincoln 
believe  about  alcohol?  What  did  he  advise  people  to  do?  Did  he 
ever  change  his  mind  on  the  temperance  question?  When  was  the 
Lincoln  Legion  started?  How  fast  did  it  grow?  Give  the  Lincoln 
pledge.  What  does  the  Lincoln  Legion  do? 


266  TOWN  AND  CITY 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 

In  former  times  where  did  people  think  malaria  came  from?  Why 
did  those  two  men  live  on  the  Roman  Campagna?  Describe  the  house. 
How  can  we  tell  anopheles  from  culex  mosquitoes?  Which  kind  went 
from  Rome  to  London  laden  with  malarial  blood?  What  was  the 
result?  How  do  the  malaria  microbes  get  from  one  person  to  another? 
What  five  points  does  the  life  of  the  microbe  in  man  and  mosquito 
prove?  What  special  fever  was  common  in  Havana?  Describe  the 
experiments  in  Camp  Lazear.  What  did  the  experiments  prove? 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

What  happened  in  New  Orleans  in  1905?  What  did  the  citizens 
decide  to  do  about  it?  Give  all  the  facts  you  can  about  mosquitoes. 
Describe  the  mosquito  war.  What  weapons  were  used?  Who  did  the 
fighting?  What  was  the  result?  Why  did  Brookline  fight  mosquitoes? 
How  did  she  go  to  work?  How  did  frogs  and  fish  help?  What  has 
Brookline  accomplished? 

CHAPTER  XXX 

In  China  how  did  the  natives  formerly  treat  a  man  with  the  plague  ? 
What  used  to  be  the  objection  to  our  hospitals?  What  two  special  things 
does  a  contagious-disease  hospital  accomplish?  Describe  the  hospital 
in  St.  Paul.  Give  the  history  of  the  Bellevue  Hospital.  In  these  days 
what  special  diseases  have  special  hospitals  ?  Describe  St.  Luke's  Hos- 
pital. What  is  an  ambulance?  How  is  it  furnished?  What  is  the 
difference  between  a  hospital  and  a  dispensary? 


INDEX 


Air  shaft,  definition,  4. 

quality  of  air  in,  4. 

illustration,  7. 
Alcohol,  expenses  of,  to  state  and  city, 

23- 

in  Suffolk  County,  23. 
record  of  crime  through,  24. 
effects,  seen  in  Elmira,  24. 
poorhouse  bills  due  to,  25. 
London  paupers  and,  25. 
jails,  reformatories,  etc.,  26. 
experiments  in  sale  of,  26. 
in  New  Britain  and  Vineland,  27. 
in  Brockton,  28. 
in  New  York  City,  28. 
attitude  of  railroads  towards,  78. 
effect  on  employees,  78. 
public  sentiment  about,  81. 
accidents  caused  by,  81. 
result  of  laws  against,  82. 
relation,  to  life  insurance,  84-88. 
effect  of,  on  health,  84. 
records  of,  since  1840,  84. 
relation  to  athletics,  88. 
relation  to  city  health,  213-220. 
relation  to  typhoid  fever,  213. 
relation  to  tuberculosis,  214. 
relation  to  cholera,  215. 
relation  to  operations,  217. 
relation  to  heredity,  220. 
attitude  of  Indians  towards,  221- 

223. 
Abraham     Lincoln's    position    in 

regard  to,  224,  225. 
Lincoln  Legion  opposed  to,  226, 227. 
Ambulance,  251. 


Anopheles  mosquito,  229-231. 

Antitoxin,  180-183. 

Aqueduct,  99,  100. 

Ashes,  collection  and  disposal,  49,  50. 

Babies,  in  single  block,  5. 

in  rear  tenements,  13. 
Barber,  about  plague  in  China,  244. 
Barren  Island,  location  of,  52. 

garbage  disposal,  53,  54. 
Baths,  public,  in  Boston,  62. 

in  Chicago,  63. 

in  New  York,  64. 

merits  of  tub  and  shower,  66. 

relation  to  health,  66. 
Beer,  testimony  of  physicians  in  regard 

to,  216,  219. 

Behring,  Dr.  Emil,  179. 
Bellevue  Hospital,  247-249. 
Berlin,  death  rate  in  1885,  14. 
Blackwell's  Island,  50. 
Boies,  H.  M.,  on  cost  of  crime,  25. 
Boston,  damp  cellars,  n. 

parks  and  beach  baths,   61,  62. 

pure  food,  164. 
Breckenridge,  Cleopas,  226. 
Bridewell  prison  and  reform,  27. 
Broad  Street  well  and  cholera,  102-104. 
Brockton,  experiment  with  saloons,  28. 
Brookline  and  mosquitoes,  241. 
Burgen,  S.  H.,  216. 

Character  and  environment,  1 5. 
Chicago,  free  baths,  63. 

sewage  disposal,  1 1 5. 

change  in  death  rate,  116. 


267 


268 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


China,  drinking  water,  100-101. 
Cholera,  studied  by  Professor  Adams, 

215. 
Cities,  growth,  1-8. 

congested  conditions,  4-6. 

explanation  of  overcrowding,  6-7. 

results  of  overcrowding,  8,  10. 
Civic  pledge,  43. 
Cleveland,  water  supply,  111-115. 

pure  food,  164. 

vaccination,  184. 

Committee  on  the  Prevention  of  Tuber- 
culosis for  the  Charity  Organiza- 
tion Society,  204. 

Consumption,  ages  at  which  mortality 
is  greatest,  200. 

city  deaths  from,  201. 

not  hereditary,  202. 

how  communicated,  202. 

how  cured,  206. 
Croton  River  dam,  aqueduct,  etc.,  89- 

92. 
Culex  mosquito,  229. 

eggs,  237. 

wigglers,  240. 

De  Forest,  Robert  W.,  13. 

Demme,  Professor,  219. 

Detroit,  children  and  the  fire  drill,  75. 

antitoxin  prepared  at,  180. 

vaccine  prepared  at,  191. 
Digesters  on  Barren  Island,  54. 
Diphtheria,  method  of  cure,  180. 
Disease,  three  conditions,  12. 
Dispensaiy,  252. 

Dover  Street  bath  house,  63,  65. 
Drainage  Canal  Case,  117. 
Drunkenness,  expense,  25. 

effect  on  posterity,  220. 

Elmira  Reformatory,  history  of  con- 
victs, 24. 

Epidemic,  in  London,  102-104. 
in  Plymouth,  107-109. 


Epidemic,  in  Cleveland,  1 13. 

in  Newburyport,  121. 

in  Lowell  and  Lawrence,  123. 

in  Springfield,  149. 

safeguards  against,  174. 

on  Ponape,  185-187. 

in  Glasgow,  215. 

in  New  Orleans,  236. 
Experiment  station,  128. 

Filter,  sand,  how  made,  125,  128. 

what  it  accomplishes,  129. 

continuous,  131. 

intermittent,  132. 
Fire,  disposal  of  garbage  by,  52. 

engine,  68. 

description  of,  68. 

directions  for  escape  from,  75. 

in  Detroit  school,  75. 

in  New  York  school,  76. 

due  to  carelessness,  76. 
Fire  escapes,  New  York  requirements, 
72. 

encumbered    and    unencumbered, 

73'  74,  77- 
Fireman,  his  work,  69. 

requirements  of,  70. 
Fisher,  Irving,  at  sanatorium,  210. 
Food  inspection,  149-163. 

Garbage,  ashes,  and  rubbish,  45-57. 

card  of  directions,  46. 

disposal  of,  before  1896,  47. 

dumping  boats,  47. 

destination  of,  52,  53. 

treatment  of,  54,  55. 

constituents  of,  54. 
Guttstadt,  Professor,  214. 

Hakuai  Maru,  hospital  ship,  139. 

Havana,  yellow  fever  in,  232-236. 

Hester  Street,  61,  66. 

High  Bridge,  90. 

Hiroshima,  reserve  hospital,  138. 


INDEX 


269 


Hospital,  in  St.  Paul,  246-247. 

Bellevue,  247-249. 

St.  Luke's,  250-251. 
Howe,  Dr.,  on  alcohol  and  idiots,  220. 
Hydrophobia,  treatment  of,  178. 

Ice  and  microbes,  106. 
Incinerators,  in  New  York,  52. 

power  supplied  by  heat  from,  52. 

bridges  lighted  by  power  from,  52. 

buildings  heated  by  power  from,  52. 
Indian  life  on  prairie,  i. 
"Infant  slaughter  houses,"  14. 
Inspectors  of  tenements,  16. 

experiences,  17. 

reports,  18. 

Jackson  Street,  fire  in,  72. 
Japan,  war  writh  Russia,  133-140. 

reversing  death  rate,  139. 

action  against  tobacco,  141-148. 
Jenner,  Dr.,  and  vaccine,  190. 
Juvenile  street-cleaning  leagues,  39-44. 

Koch,  Dr.  Robert,  and  tuberculosis,  193. 

Lake  Erie  as  drinking  water,  in. 
Lake  Michigan  and  Chicago,  115. 
Lawrence,  typhoid  fever,  121-124. 

sand  filters,  125-127. 

diminished  death  rate,  126. 
Lazear,  Camp,  233-235. 
Life  insurance,  methods,  84. 

records  since  1840,  84. 

standard  of  life  table,  85. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  on  temperance,  224, 
225. 

his  pledge,  225. 

Legion,  226-227. 
Little  Turtle,  address,  221-223. 
London,  drunken  paupers,  25. 

overcrowding,  9. 

record  of  epidemics,  102. 
Loretto  Leonard,  suffocated,  73. 


Lowell  and  typhoid  fever,  121-124. 
Ludlow  Street,  description,  32. 
"  Lung  Block,"  195. 

Malaria,  how  conveyed,  232. 
Martin,  Moses,  226. 
Massachusetts,  study  of  crime,  23. 

"  liquor  offenses,"  24. 

Board  of  Health,  127. 

experiment  station,  128. 
Mathew,  Father,  26. 
Merrimac  River,  118-122. 
Metropolitan  Water  District,  93,  97. 

meters  in,  93,  97. 

table  of  water  consumption,  94. 

detection  of  waste,  95. 
Microbes,  and  overcrowding,  8. 

favorable  conditions  for,  12. 

in  street  air,  30,  31. 

flooded  from  street,  34. 

on  unwashed  people,  64. 

how  killed,  102. 

giving  cholera,  103,  104. 

never  evaporate,  104. 

in  ice,  106. 

in  Chicago  sewage,  117. 

in  drinking  water,  119. 

in  running  water,  120. 

of  typhoid  fever,  1 24. 

filters  to  remove,  125-132. 

abundance  in  nature,  130. 

their  needs,  130. 

their  work  in  filters,  131-132. 

in  milk,  149. 

effect  on  babies,  150. 

why  harmful,  152. 

to  reduce  numbers,  159,  161. 

number  allowed  in  milk  by  New 
York,  153. 

number  allowed  in  milk  by  Roches- 
ter, 161. 

strong  and  weak,  1 74. 

Pasteur's  experiments  with,   174- 
177. 


2  7o 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


Microbes,  producing  toxin,  179-180. 

diphtheria,  182-183. 

tuberculosis,  193. 
Milk,  pure  and  impure,  150-163. 

conditions  of  purity,  153,  159. 

pasteurized,  151. 

how  damaged,  152. 

inspection,  155-157. 
Mississippi  River,  115. 
Model  dairy,  156. 
Moore,  R.   M.,  life  insurance  reports, 

85,  86. 

Morpeth,  Lord,  statistics  of  crime,  26. 
Mosquitoes,  why  they  should  go,  228— 

235- 

from  Rome  to  London,  230. 
facts  about,  238-239. 
treatment,  in  New  Orleans,  237- 

240. 

treatment,  in  Brookline,  241-243. 
Mulberry  Bend,  characterization,  9. 
illustration,  10. 
as  park,  59. 

"  Neighbor  Mine,"  42. 

Nelson,  insurance  reports,  86,  87. 

New  Britain  and  Vineland  compared, 

27. 

New  Orleans  and  yellow  fever,  236-240. 
New  York  City,  growth  of,  2-7. 

deaths  in  tenements,  13. 

work  of  tenement  inspectors,  16-17. 

reforms  in,  16-22. 

change  in  death  rate,  21. 

statistics  of  saloons,  arrests,  etc.,  28. 

street  cleaning  in  1895,  3l~3^- 

public  baths,  64. 

fire  department,  71-74. 

water  supply,  89,  90-92,  98. 

danger  from  drought,  91. 

to  escape  drought,  92. 

Health  Department,  150,  153,  160, 
182,  183,  188,  195,  204,  207. 

milk  inspection,  155-157. 


New  York  City,  milk  requirements,  160. 

pure  food,  164. 

tuberculosis,  192,  195, 196,200-201, 
203-205,  207. 

diphtheria,  182-183. 

smallpox,  188-190. 

law  against  spitting,  204. 

preventing  malaria,  241. 

hospitals,  247-251. 
Newburyport  epidemic,  121. 
"New-law  houses,"  19,  20. 

Obata,  T.,  146. 

Oberlin,  water  supply,  109,  no. 

Lincoln  Legion,  226. 
"  Old-law  houses,"  19. 
Omura,  on  use  of  tobacco,  145. 

Parks  and  playgrounds,  58,  59. 

policemen  testify  about,  59,  60. 

map,  made,  60. 

New  York  law  about,  60. 

for  schoolhouses,  61. 

in  New  York,  61. 

in  Boston,  61. 
Pasteur,  Louis,  167-172. 

four  discoveries,  173. 

preventing  splenic  fever,  174-177. 
Peiho  River,  101. 
Plymouth  epidemic,  107-109. 
Ponape,  smallpox,  185-187. 
Poole,  Ernest,  196. 

Railroad  accident  in  1905,  80. 
Railroads,  growth,  79-80. 

temperance  laws,  81-83. 
Rear  tenements,  12-13. 
Riis,  J.  A.,  11,  24,  68. 
Riker's  Island,  construction,  48-50. 
Rivington  Street  bath,  64. 
Rochester,  and  pure  milk,  161-163. 

lives  saved,  163. 

case  of  smallpox,  184. 
Roman  Campagna,  228. 


INDEX 


271 


Romans,  drinking  water  used  by,  99. 
Rome,  anopheles  sent  to  London,  230. 
Rubbish,  collection  and  disposal,  50-52. 
Russia,  war  with  Japan,  133-134. 
Rutgers  Street,  fire,  72. 

St.  Louis,  getting  Chicago  sewage,  1 16- 
117. 

New  York  exhibit  at,  57. 
St.  Luke's  Hospital,  250-251. 
Scaling  ladders,  69. 
Schoolhouses  and  playgrounds,  61. 
SCOWTS  and  garbage,  53. 
Seaman,  Major  L.,  133,  138. 
Seaver,  J.  W.,  141-143. 
Sedgwick,  William  T.,  122-123. 
Sewage,  of  Cleveland,  112-113. 

of  Chicago,  115. 

its  purification,  125-132. 
Seward  Park,  66-67. 
Silkworms  and  microbes,  165-173. 
Slocum  steamboat,  disaster,  192. 
Smallpox  and  vaccination,  184-191. 
Smithfield  prison,  27. 
Snow,  its  removal,  36-37. 
Spanish- American  War,  133. 
Spartans,  care  of  children,  58. 
Splenic  fever  prevented,  174-177. 
Springfield  epidemic,  149. 
Stegomyia  and  yellow  fever,  233. 
Stony  Brook  and  typhoid  fever,  123. 
Street  cleaning,  and  politics,  33. 

removal  of  snowT,  35. 

contractors  for  rubbish,  51. 

department  of,  in  New  York,  56,  57. 

work  of  the  leagues,  39-44. 
Street  sweepers,  costume  and  work,  34. 

numbers  in  1906,  38. 
Street  sweepings,  collection,  49. 

destination,  49. 
Streets,  clean  and  unclean,  30. 

children  crowded  out,  3. 

flushing,  38. 

transformation,  35. 


Suffolk  County,  crime  records,  23. 
Sweeping  machines,  34. 

Tenement     House     Department,     16- 

21. 

Tenement  houses,  height,  3. 
crowded  condition,  4. 
defined,  16. 

fire  requirements,  71-72. 
Thomas,    Dr.,  makes    alcohol    experi- 
ments, 216. 
Tientsin,  100-101. 
Tobacco,  141-148. 

proclamation  of  Emperor  of  Japan, 

141. 
investigations  of  Professor  Seaver, 

141-143. 

as  prohibited  in  Germany,  144. 
prohibited  at  West  Point  and  An- 
napolis, 144. 

Toledo  Blade  and  beer,  216-220. 
Toxin,  179-183. 
Tubercle  bacillus,  193-194. 

multiplication  of,  in  lungs,  199. 
Tuberculosis  in  New  York  City,  192, 

195,  196,  200. 
war  against,  203. 

work  of  Charity  Organization  So- 
ciety respecting,  204. 
sanatoria  for,  209. 
rules  for  prevention,  211. 
the  five  D's,  212. 
in  different  occupations,  214. 
Typhoid  fever,  105. 

in  Plymouth,  107-108. 
in  Cleveland,  114-115. 
relation  of,  to  drinking  water,  119- 

123. 
taken  from  milk,  149. 

Vaccination,  184-191. 
Ventilation,  in  tenements,  4. 

overcrowding  and,  10. 

relation  to  death  rate,  14. 


272 


TOWN  AND  CITY 


Vermilion  River,  no. 
Vineland  and  New  Britain,  27. 

Waring,  Colonel,  32-35,  46. 
Water,  New  York  supply,  89. 

increased  need  of,  90. 

amount  needed  per  capita,  94. 

waste,  in  Milton,  95. 

usual  methods  of  waste,  96-97. 

purified  by  evaporation,  104. 

how  contaminated,  105. 

disease  from,  106. 


Water,  how  classified,  106. 

Oberlin  supply,  109—110. 

Cleveland  supply,  111-113. 

of  the  Merrimac  River,  118-122. 
its  purification,  125,  126. 

as  used  by  Japanese  army,  136-137. 
"  White  Wings,"  34. 
Williamsburg  Bridge,  incinerator,  52. 
Woodbury.  Dr.  John  McGaw,  38,  56. 

Yellow  fever,  experiments,  234-235. 
in  New  Orleans,  236-240. 


ANNOUNCEMENTS 


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room but  also  for  the  home  reading  table  or  bookshelf.  The  illustra- 
tions are  of  unusual  value  and  interest.  The  whole  plan  and  make-up 
of  the  book  have  been  kept  in  as  close  harmony  as  possible  with  the 
excellence  and  high  character  of  the  text  itself. 

From  the  School  Revieiv,  Chicago 

The  publishers  do  not  overstate  the  merits  of  this  book  when  they  say  that  it  is  one 
of  the  most  notable  nature-study  books  now  published.  The  emphasis  is  upon  nature,  — 
not  upon  study,  —  and  life  is  never  sacrificed  to  some  fancied  correlation  or  some  narrow 
scientific  application.  The  illustrations  are  singularly  felicitous  in  that  they  show  us  not 
only  nature  but  also  human  nature  in  the  persons  of  interested  girls  and  boys.  This  is  a 
book  for  the  home  as  well  as  for  the  school.  It  is  scientific  in  its  knowledge,  simple 
in  its  phraseology,  and  fascinating  in  its  style. 


GINN  &  COMPANY  PUBLISHERS 


NATURE    STUDY 


List  Mailing 

The  Jane  Andrews  Books:  ^ice    ***• 

The  Seven  Little  Sisters  ...                                                          «o  no  So  cc 

Each  and  All 50  ?? 

Stories  Mother  Nature  Told  Her  Children co  .cc 

My  Four  Friends 40  45 

Atkinson's  First  Studies  of  Plant  Life       .     .                                            .60  70 

Beal's  Seed  Dispersal ;    .      .35  .40 

Bergen's  Glimpses  at  the  Plant  World 40  4? 

Burt's  Little  Nature  Studies  for  Little  People.    Vol.  I.  A  Primer 
and  a  First  Reader.    Vol.  II.  A  Second  Reader  and  a  Third 

Reader each      .25  .30 

Burkett,  Stevens,  and  Hill's  Agriculture  for  Beginners   .....       .75  .80 

Comstock's  Ways  of  the  Six-Footed       40  .45 

Eddy's  Friends  and  Helpers 60  .70 

Frye's  Brooks  and  Brook  Basins 50  .60 

Frye's  Child  and  Nature 80  .88 

Gould's  Mother  Nature's  Children 60  .70 

Hale's  Little  Flower  People 40  .45 

Hardy's  Sea  Stories  for  Wonder  Eyes 40  .45 

Hodge's  Nature  Study  and  Life 1.50  1.65 

Holden's  The  Sciences 50  .60 

Jefferies'  Sir  Bevis 30  .35 

Lane's  Oriole  Stories 28  .« 

Long's  Wood  Folk  Series: 

A  Little  Brother  to  the  Bear 50  .60 

Ways  of  Wood  Folk 50  .60 

Wilderness  Ways 45  .50 

Secrets  of  the  Woods 50  .60 

Wood  Folk  at  School 50  .60 

Morley's  Little  Wanderers 10  .35 

Morley's  Insect  Folk.    Vol.  I 45  .50 

Morley's  Butterflies  and  Bees.     Insect  Folk.     Vol.  II 60  .70 

Porter's  Stars  in  Song  and  Legend 50  .55 

Roth's  First  Book  of  Forestry 75  .85 

Stickney's  Study  and  Story  Nature  Readers : 

Earth  and  Sky,  No.  I 30  .35 

Earth  and  Sky,  No.  II 30  .35 

Earth  and  Sky,  No.  Ill 35  .40 

Pets  and  Companions 30  .40 

Bird  World 60  .70 

Strong's  All  the  Year  Round.     Part  I,  Autumn.     Part  II,  Winter. 

Part  III,  Spring.     Part  IV.  Summer  (Lane)     ....  each       .30  .35 

Weed's  Seed-Travellers 25  .30 

Weed's  Stories  of  Insect  Life : 

First  Series 25  .30 

Second  Series.  (Murtfeldt  and  Weed) 30  .35 


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